I have not read the minutes of the meetings, nor the memos myself. Those who have trawled those tell that the leaders saw the famine as a given, and a general collapse during th winter as a given. There were some who may have thought they could just feed the army and essential production workers and carry on. The rest do not seem to have thought that realistic. Of particular note are the thoughts about morale in the Army. As I mentioned before the solderers were seldom more than a few hundred kilometers from their families and friends. Many in the third tier reserve units and militia just tens of kilometers away. They all knew just how bad it was and how the situation was liable to be worse in a few weeks or months.
We also need to look beyond the cliches and American or European misunderstandings of Japanese culture at this moment in history. The Chief of staff of the Japanese 10th Army defending Okinawa survived that battle. his post war account has been translated into English. Concise and clinical, or professional is its narrative it does not describe the Japanese civilians & soldiers on Okinawa as a solid disciplined cohort. he describes the civilians as mostly ignoring efforts to have them assist the military. Some did, but he describes the areas unoccupied by the enemy as filled with Japanese civilians trying to hide or escape the battle. He also describes the local Japanese militia battalions as breaking down the first time each enters combat and rapidly becoming useless. Similarly the reservist battalion mobilized from the Japanese population of Okinawa fell apart just a little slower. A few days of combat were enough to trigger significant desertions. As Army Chief of Staff he saw the reports on how the Kemptai unit, and the military police were unable to contain the evasion or desertion of the mass of Japanese.
He describes the first tier Army regiments as retaining discipline much longer. He implies they might have held together yet longer but for what he regarded as a extremely stupid and pointless massed daylight attack by the two good quality or regular army divisions. This attack included severe casualties among the remaining combat worthy battalions from concentrated enemy firepower, the loss of ammunition reserves, and the gain of only few hundred meters of broken terrain. After that attack the main strength of the defense was broken and the next two weeks of resistance was by small ad hoc groups of fanatics. Meanwhile in those weeks US records show masses of Japanese nationals, both civilians and soldiers surrendering. A portion of these soldiers were still armed, but had not interest in either resisting or suicide. The interrogation reports indicate they simply wanted to eat.
Bottom line from study of Japanese behavior in the Okinawa battle was different from the island battles like Tarawa. Pellieu, Guan, or Saipan. There were certainly many fanatics on Okinawa, and the general resistance was longer and more fanatical than the general German behavior, or even the SS & nazi fanatics. But, the Okinawan battle indicates at least a few assumptions about Japanese fanaticism, discipline, loyalty to the Emperor were not what the pop history cliches suggest.
