Decisive Darkness: What if Japan hadn't surrendered in 1945?
- Thread starter The Red
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Done! I just spent my entire day lying in bed reading this (I didn't even bother showering), and I have to say that this TL is rather excellent. I love the grimness - it makes me feel better about OTL. The TL is, I think, no less realistic than most of OTL, and better written to boot.
I find this new Thailand/Indochina situation to be interesting and, dare I say it, original. I would hold out hope that French colonialism could be gone from the area completely, but then it occurred to me that, if the rest of the TL is anything to go by, that would probably make things worse TTL.
I find this new Thailand/Indochina situation to be interesting and, dare I say it, original. I would hold out hope that French colonialism could be gone from the area completely, but then it occurred to me that, if the rest of the TL is anything to go by, that would probably make things worse TTL.
Done! I just spent my entire day lying in bed reading this (I didn't even bother showering), and I have to say that this TL is rather excellent. I love the grimness - it makes me feel better about OTL. The TL is, I think, no less realistic than most of OTL, and better written to boot.
I find this new Thailand/Indochina situation to be interesting and, dare I say it, original. I would hold out hope that French colonialism could be gone from the area completely, but then it occurred to me that, if the rest of the TL is anything to go by, that would probably make things worse TTL.
agreed. you could literally see the effort The Red put into this, first going through data, analysing them and finally using them as medium of making a great alternate history timeline for Southeast Asia.
Possibly, Vietnam does have several major enemies already though...
It is, for December-January in any case, the Laotian highlands are going to be far trickier, nice work!
I try to shower after every update.
I find this new Thailand/Indochina situation to be interesting and, dare I say it, original. I would hold out hope that French colonialism could be gone from the area completely, but then it occurred to me that, if the rest of the TL is anything to go by, that would probably make things worse TTL.
Thanks guys.
It is, for December-January in any case, the Laotian highlands are going to be far trickier, nice work!
Thanx!
I'll try to provide maps to keep up with the TL as it moves along - nice to know that I'm that good at translating the text of the updates into the visual medium of the maps.
Tuyên ngôn Nhân quyền và Dân quyền
A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.
~ Ho Chi Minh
In the late January of 1946, as the rest of world had watched with horror at the civilian massacres in Indonesia and of Operation Sandman on Kyushu, a particularly rusted and dirt coated trawler pulled into Saigon without a great deal of notice. A year beforehand American bombers had devastated the harbour, destroying thousands of tons of shipping. Though the Japanese had attempted to make repairs to the harbour that had become increasingly important to their operations in the area, these had been disrupted by their formal takeover of Indochina in March, and were still not complete by the time of their evacuation in October and November. Nonetheless for this one, small solitary ship a wrecked harbour could still prove accommodating, and indeed, advantageous, for the essence of her cargo was such that would be convenient for the Western Allied powers to take little notice.
The anonymous Mr Lin-tay might have seen somewhat annoyed by this entrance to the city after his long journey across Eurasia. A far more comfortable ship had taken from Burma to Liverpool after all, nothing but first class for the wealthy Chinese businessman who had had the means to journey from his native China to Zurich to treat his tuberculosis. He might have complained of the rough conditions he was forced to endure on his ocean voyage, had his disguise still had meaning. However amongst the men he was with now there was little point in continuing the pretence with which he had endeared himself to the peoples of Great Britain and Switzerland who had been such amicable hosts and enablers in his vast voyage. For now he could once again be comfortable in the fact that he was Dr. Pham Ngoc Thach, not a sufferer of Tuberculosis, but a specialist in its treatment. Not a humble businessman, but the first ambassador of the People’s Republic of Vietnam.
Like Ho Chi Minh himself he had spent a great deal of time in France before he had become instrumental in the takeover of power in the city of Saigon, his true home, from the defeated Japanese, his mission had been to return with the aim of re-establishing contact with the leadership of the PCF, the French Communist Party, now the largest party within the chamber of deputies within the young Fourth Republic. After spending several pleasant weeks amongst his Swiss friends, he had snuck across the border into France whilst Ho had established the new regime back home. With the Alps still to their backs he had met with Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos, the two men he hoped might prove decisive in ensuring that the French would not return to Indochina after the inevitable Japanese defeat. By providing evidence that French civilians and soldiers were being well treated, despite still being interned, he also aimed to contrast the Vietnamese from the increasingly murderous measures the Japanese had been taking against other European prisoners under their control.
For their own part Thorez and Duclos were wary of any commitment. The leading role the Communist Party had played in the French resistance, alongside the popular image of the Soviet Union as having defeated the Nazi menace almost singlehandedly, had gained the party a great deal of popular support in the wake of the liberation. Nonetheless the election that had taken place only a few weeks before they had met the Vietnamese Doctor had shown that said support was not yet enough to lead France on their own, and despite winning a plurality of seats, they had been forced into coalition with the two other major French parties, the Socialists and the Christian Democrats. All three despised each, yet they were unified in their fear of the demagogic Charles De Gaulle, whom they privately feared would exploit his popularity amongst the people to establish a military junta if the three proved unable to hang together. In support of Vietnam the Communist Party knew that they would split the Socialists and gain almost universal opposition from the Christian Democrats, in all likelihood there was no means at present for which they could legislate for Indochinese independence. Even if they could, there was no guarantee that De Gaulle would not exploit this as the casus belli for which to launch a coup and ban the Communist Party altogether. They could offer Vietnam moral support, but until the young Republic stabilised itself, or the opportunity arose for a full Communist takeover of France, the potential pitfalls were too great to offer any legislative commitment.
They were however willing to introduce the Doctor to the Soviet envoy in Paris, who managed to arrange a journey to Moscow to speak directly to the Soviet Politburo of his mission. Throughout war torn Europe he had travelled, into the frozen tundra that had halted the Wehrmacht, and into the Kremlin itself where he met an atmosphere far colder than the snow outside. The Soviet premier wished to know why the Vietnamese regime had seemingly chosen to disband the Indochinese Communist Party in favour of their own nationalistic concerns, and if they were in face just another Japanese puppet state yet to fall as some Soviet reports had indicated. Pham chose to emphasise the present situation rather than attempt to defend against these accusations, wary of meeting a similar fate that several other unofficial foreign delegations had met at the hands of Stalin. He declared that whilst Cambodia and Laos were indeed Japanese puppet regimes, there was little they could do to spread the revolution there without indirectly aiding the Thai, a far more ominous threat to socialism in Indochina. All the while he reminded Stalin that the Japanese who had retreated from Indochina had met a similar fate to their other comrades in China, and had fallen to the Kuomintang forces of Chiang Kai Sek, who still proclaimed his right to occupy Indochina after the war was over. This had been exacerbated by French and Japanese mismanagement of agriculture which had left Vietnam on the brink of starvation, a fact that Pham did not have to exaggerate, with several regions only beginning to recover after their rice crops had been returned from Japanese control. This was yet another matter that had required greater attention than affairs to the north or the west. He nonetheless asserted that, with Soviet support to augment their existing Japanese arsenals Pham assured the Soviet premier that the Vietnamese would be in a position to not only hold off Chiang or the Pridi regime in Thailand, but would also be in a position to spread the revolution to those areas when the chance arose.
With all the relief of a man expecting to be purged at any moment, Pham had reacted to Stalin’s non-committal stance with incredible enthusiasm. He would be sent back to Vietnam covertly whilst the Soviets would send an envoy alongside him to further discuss the Vietnamese situation. Phom would return to Saigon without any concrete assurances, but in the knowledge that both the French Communists and the Soviets knew that an independent Vietnam was a reality and they had not reacted to the prospect with the hostility some in the new Vietnamese leadership had feared. In contrast to the intense patriotic whirlwind of tri-colours he had seen in France, the streets of Saigon were now completely devoid of Red, White, and Blue in the wake of an aggressive effort of removing any indication that the French, or the Japanese, for that matter might have ever ruled Vietnam. The old man the Soviets had sent to meet the new Vietnamese leadership seemed to know more Japanese than French, but he nonetheless spoke the latter with a good deal of authority. As he had met with Ho Chi Minh he had been just as non-committal as Stalin had been despite general pleasantries but his importance was far greater than anything he might yet offer diplomatically. For Ho knew that the Americans were surely watching his movements, and whilst the French and the Soviets might have been cool in their response, he was sure the OSS report of this news would make for some interesting reactions in Washington.
A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.
~ Ho Chi Minh
In the late January of 1946, as the rest of world had watched with horror at the civilian massacres in Indonesia and of Operation Sandman on Kyushu, a particularly rusted and dirt coated trawler pulled into Saigon without a great deal of notice. A year beforehand American bombers had devastated the harbour, destroying thousands of tons of shipping. Though the Japanese had attempted to make repairs to the harbour that had become increasingly important to their operations in the area, these had been disrupted by their formal takeover of Indochina in March, and were still not complete by the time of their evacuation in October and November. Nonetheless for this one, small solitary ship a wrecked harbour could still prove accommodating, and indeed, advantageous, for the essence of her cargo was such that would be convenient for the Western Allied powers to take little notice.
The anonymous Mr Lin-tay might have seen somewhat annoyed by this entrance to the city after his long journey across Eurasia. A far more comfortable ship had taken from Burma to Liverpool after all, nothing but first class for the wealthy Chinese businessman who had had the means to journey from his native China to Zurich to treat his tuberculosis. He might have complained of the rough conditions he was forced to endure on his ocean voyage, had his disguise still had meaning. However amongst the men he was with now there was little point in continuing the pretence with which he had endeared himself to the peoples of Great Britain and Switzerland who had been such amicable hosts and enablers in his vast voyage. For now he could once again be comfortable in the fact that he was Dr. Pham Ngoc Thach, not a sufferer of Tuberculosis, but a specialist in its treatment. Not a humble businessman, but the first ambassador of the People’s Republic of Vietnam.
Like Ho Chi Minh himself he had spent a great deal of time in France before he had become instrumental in the takeover of power in the city of Saigon, his true home, from the defeated Japanese, his mission had been to return with the aim of re-establishing contact with the leadership of the PCF, the French Communist Party, now the largest party within the chamber of deputies within the young Fourth Republic. After spending several pleasant weeks amongst his Swiss friends, he had snuck across the border into France whilst Ho had established the new regime back home. With the Alps still to their backs he had met with Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos, the two men he hoped might prove decisive in ensuring that the French would not return to Indochina after the inevitable Japanese defeat. By providing evidence that French civilians and soldiers were being well treated, despite still being interned, he also aimed to contrast the Vietnamese from the increasingly murderous measures the Japanese had been taking against other European prisoners under their control.
For their own part Thorez and Duclos were wary of any commitment. The leading role the Communist Party had played in the French resistance, alongside the popular image of the Soviet Union as having defeated the Nazi menace almost singlehandedly, had gained the party a great deal of popular support in the wake of the liberation. Nonetheless the election that had taken place only a few weeks before they had met the Vietnamese Doctor had shown that said support was not yet enough to lead France on their own, and despite winning a plurality of seats, they had been forced into coalition with the two other major French parties, the Socialists and the Christian Democrats. All three despised each, yet they were unified in their fear of the demagogic Charles De Gaulle, whom they privately feared would exploit his popularity amongst the people to establish a military junta if the three proved unable to hang together. In support of Vietnam the Communist Party knew that they would split the Socialists and gain almost universal opposition from the Christian Democrats, in all likelihood there was no means at present for which they could legislate for Indochinese independence. Even if they could, there was no guarantee that De Gaulle would not exploit this as the casus belli for which to launch a coup and ban the Communist Party altogether. They could offer Vietnam moral support, but until the young Republic stabilised itself, or the opportunity arose for a full Communist takeover of France, the potential pitfalls were too great to offer any legislative commitment.
They were however willing to introduce the Doctor to the Soviet envoy in Paris, who managed to arrange a journey to Moscow to speak directly to the Soviet Politburo of his mission. Throughout war torn Europe he had travelled, into the frozen tundra that had halted the Wehrmacht, and into the Kremlin itself where he met an atmosphere far colder than the snow outside. The Soviet premier wished to know why the Vietnamese regime had seemingly chosen to disband the Indochinese Communist Party in favour of their own nationalistic concerns, and if they were in face just another Japanese puppet state yet to fall as some Soviet reports had indicated. Pham chose to emphasise the present situation rather than attempt to defend against these accusations, wary of meeting a similar fate that several other unofficial foreign delegations had met at the hands of Stalin. He declared that whilst Cambodia and Laos were indeed Japanese puppet regimes, there was little they could do to spread the revolution there without indirectly aiding the Thai, a far more ominous threat to socialism in Indochina. All the while he reminded Stalin that the Japanese who had retreated from Indochina had met a similar fate to their other comrades in China, and had fallen to the Kuomintang forces of Chiang Kai Sek, who still proclaimed his right to occupy Indochina after the war was over. This had been exacerbated by French and Japanese mismanagement of agriculture which had left Vietnam on the brink of starvation, a fact that Pham did not have to exaggerate, with several regions only beginning to recover after their rice crops had been returned from Japanese control. This was yet another matter that had required greater attention than affairs to the north or the west. He nonetheless asserted that, with Soviet support to augment their existing Japanese arsenals Pham assured the Soviet premier that the Vietnamese would be in a position to not only hold off Chiang or the Pridi regime in Thailand, but would also be in a position to spread the revolution to those areas when the chance arose.
With all the relief of a man expecting to be purged at any moment, Pham had reacted to Stalin’s non-committal stance with incredible enthusiasm. He would be sent back to Vietnam covertly whilst the Soviets would send an envoy alongside him to further discuss the Vietnamese situation. Phom would return to Saigon without any concrete assurances, but in the knowledge that both the French Communists and the Soviets knew that an independent Vietnam was a reality and they had not reacted to the prospect with the hostility some in the new Vietnamese leadership had feared. In contrast to the intense patriotic whirlwind of tri-colours he had seen in France, the streets of Saigon were now completely devoid of Red, White, and Blue in the wake of an aggressive effort of removing any indication that the French, or the Japanese, for that matter might have ever ruled Vietnam. The old man the Soviets had sent to meet the new Vietnamese leadership seemed to know more Japanese than French, but he nonetheless spoke the latter with a good deal of authority. As he had met with Ho Chi Minh he had been just as non-committal as Stalin had been despite general pleasantries but his importance was far greater than anything he might yet offer diplomatically. For Ho knew that the Americans were surely watching his movements, and whilst the French and the Soviets might have been cool in their response, he was sure the OSS report of this news would make for some interesting reactions in Washington.
Thanks D, going to back away from Cambodia for a little while now, though it will still feature in tomorrow's update, as we venture to D.C. to get Truman's outlook on the whole mess.
Thanx!
I'll try to provide maps to keep up with the TL as it moves along - nice to know that I'm that good at translating the text of the updates into the visual medium of the maps.
It's appreciated, though I fear you may have your work cut out for you when things get...interesting.
Now, we talk about Barefoot Gen, Grave of the Fireflies, and we talk about Sonny begin gone. What are some other movies, books, and games that would be either butterfly away, or would be very different. Like, would Apocalypse Now be in Japan?
An adaptation of the Heart of Darkness set towards the end of this alternate Pacific War?
Money my shut take up and!
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The problem with doing a version of Apocalypse Now set during Downfall is that fundamentally the 'Heart of Darkness' message is one about the brutalities of imperialism (well Belgian imperialism to be precise but the message still carries over), considering the far more traumatic experience the US has had, when the war does eventually end there might not be a whole lot of sympathy for self-reflection. Now of there's a similar rise of historical revisionism about the Pacific War that we saw in OTL it could still happen but it would be far more controversial than IOTL.
MarshalBraginsky referred me to here.
EDIT: My mistake on promoting my game...
Hey no worries, I've actually been reading up a little on the Manga's mentioned, I may do some ITTL summaries at some point.
All will be revealed.
Let’s Go To San Francisco
We took the highway to the one,
Up the coast to catch some sun,
That left me with these blisters on my skin
~ Pat Monohan
The reaction of President Truman to the news of Kenjii Doihara’s supposed coup has been an issue that is often linked in with that of his decision to abandon his predecessor’s determination to prevent the use of Chemical Weapons. It is true that perhaps in some sense he did feel personally responsible for bringing about the development’s that the United States may never have been aware of had it not been for Doihara, however the accusations that he dithered in response, or chose to soften the US approach towards Japan out of some lingering sense of guilt, are shown to be fiction by any detailed reading of his decisions made in the wake of the revelations that reached Washington on the morning of the 16th of February, 1946.
Though across the Pacific the opportunistic coup had collapsed hours beforehand, President Truman responded to the information he had received with an energy that matched that of the Japanese General currently fleeing an embarrassed and vengeful Kempetai, choosing to personally call the drowsy head of the Naval Staff of the San Francisco Harbour Defence Command Post under the aged concrete structure of Fort Scott to demand he mobilise all available resources at his disposal as soon as possible, when Truman was informed that this was not much the angered President berated the Commander for his lack of urgency and disclosed fully the nature of the threat that might be headed towards the city.
Unfortunately for the President, the issue was indeed one of scarcity rather than sloth. This had not always been the case, the fact that San Francisco Bay Area shipbuilders were so significant to the United States war effort, having produced almost 45 percent of all the cargo shipping tonnage and 20 percent of warship tonnage built in the entire country during the war. The threat of further aerial Japanese attacks in the wake of Pearl Harbour had led to a radical build-up of the ports coastal and sea defences, the vast landscape around the iconic Golden Gate bridge being dotted with literally hundreds of mobile antiaircraft guns, searchlights and radars. Across the inner harbor and anti-submarine net extending from the Marina in San Francisco to Sausalito in Marin had been cast, with the Navy in full control of those ships allowed to enter and leave. Soldiers assigned to the fortifications and observation stations dug vast trenches on the hillsides near their batteries, even constructing underground quarters from inside the hillsides. Camouflage paint covered every battery and barrack, with those objects too large to paint being covered in large camouflage nets. From the skies predatory Airships had hung in wait for their expected prey with depth charges as they had patrolled offshore waters.
Akin to much of the rest of the American war effort, it was an effort of truly staggering proportions, yet one that had been for nought for the vast arsenal would only ever fire in practice, and the airships only victims would be the occasional unfortunate whale. As the American role in the war intensified across both shining seas, and the threat of major Japanese aerial attack gradually receded, the large array of defences and her rather bored operators had been dismantled and sent to areas of greater need ever since the beginning of 1944. As the Golden Gate’s vista had gradually become less militarised, some would joke that the frail lookout air raid had been one of the best Japanese moves of the war by locking down this force for so long, little did the citizens of San Francisco know, there was now very little to joke about.
Though San Francisco’s defences could be restored to their previous might, this was a process that would take several weeks, whilst recalling several of the Destroyers based in the Pacific to form a defensive perimeter around the city would also take over a fortnight. Without knowledge of the Japanese forces whereabouts this might have been too late to intercept the Submarines before their attack. Truman, who just a day beforehand had been busying himself with how to respond to the continuing Thai advance into Indochina, now found himself facing a major disaster on the American continent.
The ultimate decision not to evacuate San Francisco in these circumstances has provoked condemnation from those on the West Coast for many years however in this regard Truman must be forgiven. Lacking foresight in what was to come, the President was more concerned with mass panic if he did indeed reveal the situation to the cities peoples, not to mention the strategic loss that an empty San Francisco would represent with ships undergoing repair being left abandoned at such a crucial moment before Operation Coronet.
The city, for a time, remained calm, as troops slowly began to return to previously abandoned defensive positions on the basis of ‘exercises’, the city continued to busy itself with the winning of a war now seemingly close to completion, blind to the threat that now silently approached.
We took the highway to the one,
Up the coast to catch some sun,
That left me with these blisters on my skin
~ Pat Monohan
The reaction of President Truman to the news of Kenjii Doihara’s supposed coup has been an issue that is often linked in with that of his decision to abandon his predecessor’s determination to prevent the use of Chemical Weapons. It is true that perhaps in some sense he did feel personally responsible for bringing about the development’s that the United States may never have been aware of had it not been for Doihara, however the accusations that he dithered in response, or chose to soften the US approach towards Japan out of some lingering sense of guilt, are shown to be fiction by any detailed reading of his decisions made in the wake of the revelations that reached Washington on the morning of the 16th of February, 1946.
Though across the Pacific the opportunistic coup had collapsed hours beforehand, President Truman responded to the information he had received with an energy that matched that of the Japanese General currently fleeing an embarrassed and vengeful Kempetai, choosing to personally call the drowsy head of the Naval Staff of the San Francisco Harbour Defence Command Post under the aged concrete structure of Fort Scott to demand he mobilise all available resources at his disposal as soon as possible, when Truman was informed that this was not much the angered President berated the Commander for his lack of urgency and disclosed fully the nature of the threat that might be headed towards the city.
Unfortunately for the President, the issue was indeed one of scarcity rather than sloth. This had not always been the case, the fact that San Francisco Bay Area shipbuilders were so significant to the United States war effort, having produced almost 45 percent of all the cargo shipping tonnage and 20 percent of warship tonnage built in the entire country during the war. The threat of further aerial Japanese attacks in the wake of Pearl Harbour had led to a radical build-up of the ports coastal and sea defences, the vast landscape around the iconic Golden Gate bridge being dotted with literally hundreds of mobile antiaircraft guns, searchlights and radars. Across the inner harbor and anti-submarine net extending from the Marina in San Francisco to Sausalito in Marin had been cast, with the Navy in full control of those ships allowed to enter and leave. Soldiers assigned to the fortifications and observation stations dug vast trenches on the hillsides near their batteries, even constructing underground quarters from inside the hillsides. Camouflage paint covered every battery and barrack, with those objects too large to paint being covered in large camouflage nets. From the skies predatory Airships had hung in wait for their expected prey with depth charges as they had patrolled offshore waters.
Akin to much of the rest of the American war effort, it was an effort of truly staggering proportions, yet one that had been for nought for the vast arsenal would only ever fire in practice, and the airships only victims would be the occasional unfortunate whale. As the American role in the war intensified across both shining seas, and the threat of major Japanese aerial attack gradually receded, the large array of defences and her rather bored operators had been dismantled and sent to areas of greater need ever since the beginning of 1944. As the Golden Gate’s vista had gradually become less militarised, some would joke that the frail lookout air raid had been one of the best Japanese moves of the war by locking down this force for so long, little did the citizens of San Francisco know, there was now very little to joke about.
Though San Francisco’s defences could be restored to their previous might, this was a process that would take several weeks, whilst recalling several of the Destroyers based in the Pacific to form a defensive perimeter around the city would also take over a fortnight. Without knowledge of the Japanese forces whereabouts this might have been too late to intercept the Submarines before their attack. Truman, who just a day beforehand had been busying himself with how to respond to the continuing Thai advance into Indochina, now found himself facing a major disaster on the American continent.
The ultimate decision not to evacuate San Francisco in these circumstances has provoked condemnation from those on the West Coast for many years however in this regard Truman must be forgiven. Lacking foresight in what was to come, the President was more concerned with mass panic if he did indeed reveal the situation to the cities peoples, not to mention the strategic loss that an empty San Francisco would represent with ships undergoing repair being left abandoned at such a crucial moment before Operation Coronet.
The city, for a time, remained calm, as troops slowly began to return to previously abandoned defensive positions on the basis of ‘exercises’, the city continued to busy itself with the winning of a war now seemingly close to completion, blind to the threat that now silently approached.
If I am not mistaken eight Atomic bombs have fallen on Japan by this point. After this I would not be surpised if that number quadrupled.
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