In addition to what others have said, I'll point out that the ideas for a settlement that did emerge from the Japanese government during the war tended to involve retaining a lot of their pre-war empire and still being allowed to wage war in China. Even if the US dropped its requirement for unconditional surrender, they'd still have to push about as hard as they did IOTL just to get halfway reasonable terms.
Would Japan surrender conditionally without an invasion or atomic bombs?
- Thread starter LeX
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It’s only a matter of time before the “atomic bomb debate” falls to the way of the great sea mammal on this board. This isn’t a knock on OP because I think his question was different, but I just can’t fathom how anyone who really knows ww2 and what was going in the pacific, could possibly argue in good faith against the atomic bombs. The only debate that exists is how much the atomic bombs vs the Soviet blitz of Manchuria led to the surrender.
When the Soviets steam rolled Manchuria, the leaders in Japan knew they lost the Mainland. When Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened they knew they lost Japan itself. One or the other they would still have hope, but with both happening like they did showed them they had no way to keep going without the total destruction of Dai Nippon.
Let me assist debate with controversy: the historical surrender was conditional due to the choices of US policy makers regarding the person of the Emperor and an Emperor existing. Japan couldn’t stipulate this condition but the choice was made during occupation. People have raised Napoleons second surrender: it took ages for Europe to work that out and we ought to view the “after” and the working out as part of any surrender. (This was a good choice for the US as it reduced their costs in the occupation).
However much you think the matter is settled there will never be a shortage of threads concerning the atomic bombings and the last months of WW2. It is simply far too complex, interesting and morally charged for people to stop debating it or discussing points of divergence.
Sort of, the US didn't want to get rid of Hirohito (potentially destabilizing an already defeated Japan) so it was an easy "concession" to make.
No they didn't. They might have surrendered due to the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, which never had that name - it doesn't fit the way the Soviet Union named operations at all.
It's not at all clear, AIUI, what the tipping point was, or if there even was one. The start of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the Nakasaki bombing occurred on the same day, and were discussed at the same cabinet meeting. Hirohito mentioned the atomic bomb specifically in his surrender broadcast, but that doesn't necessarily prove anything.
For what it's worth, I think that the near-simultenaity of the two was a key consideration. The atomic bomb alone might not have been enough. The Soviet Union entering the war might not have been enough. Even both, but with a substantial (weeks-to-months) time between them might not have been enough. And note that even with both occurring, there was an attempted coup in favour of continuing to fight!
Allied ground forces landing in Japan would also be another thing that would weigh heavily in favour of surrender, IMO - but again, not necessarily enough on its own. As far as I know, there has never been a successful invasion of Japan, and nobody has seriously tried since the Mongols in the thirteenth century. The US doing so would probably be a major shock to Japanese confidence; I suspect a Soviet invasion wouldn't have been able to achieve a foothold, so wouldn't have the same effect. Sufficient suffering of the population probably wouldn't be enough to force surrender on its own, given the indifference that the government seemed to show, but if inflicted long enough, the ability to sustain war would disappear.
At that point, the line between 'continued blockade' and 'Japanese genocide' is paper-thin.
Look More Closely Later
Gone Fishin'
The Indian Army was also coming for Imperial Japan in Southeast Asia, with a million plus troops, and was tying up the loose ends from having steamrolled the Imperial Japanese in Burma in mid-1945, as far as I understand it - and reorganising and maybe readying even more troops for the next round of fighting. Imperial Japan was really not having a good summer that year.
The forces in Southeast Asia were going to keep heading southeast, with ZIPPER capturing bases in Malaya, followed by MAILFIST to recapture Singapore. The Australians would have struck south from the Philippines into Borneo, Java, and the eastern Dutch East Indies.
The Chinese were making good process against Japan as well - Hunan and Guanxi had been retaken, Nationalist troops were within about twenty miles of Zhanjiang, and plans were well advanced to launch an offensive (CARBONADO) towards Guangzhou in September. That would give them a sea port, making a huge difference to Chinese logistics.
All of which is to say, even if Japan kept fighting, it would have been confined to the Home Islands before too much longer.
The soviet invasion and the two atomic bombs all were within three days of each other, you can't split them apart. the reality is it's not either/or, bomb or soviets, but both
The IJA didn't really care that much about the bombing at home certainly not the commands abroad.
The home authorities didn't really care too much about the red army in Manchuria
That's why it took Hirohito surrender addressing the nation and talking about the bombs, and then when the IJA didn't surrender after that it took a specific command (plea) to the IJA abroad to surrender that mentioned the Soviets
(and frankly even than there was an attempted coup because while the IJA talks about loyalty to the emperor it's only really when he says what they want to hear, and when ever they don't hear it why it must be because he's being misadvised by traitors and must be saved!)
In regards the threatened invasion of Japan that was actually the Japanese plan! The Japanese high command felt that if the US and UK & Co invaded they could inflict so many casualties on them that they would be forced to compromise on the unconditional surrender demands and come to the table or retreat whish would more politically unpalatable for the wallies, the whole thing possibly being facilitated by a neutral USSR
But both the atomic bombing and the USSR declaring war and them steamrolling over the Manchukuo army caused issue for that plan
1). The atomic bombing* what they knew was unlike mass bombing raids that required large numbers of planes and aircrews and specific situations to cause mass damage and death, now seemingly a single bomber could do the same. This presented them with the potential reality that unlike years of conventional bombing in Europe and months in Japan it was possible that country could now be functionally destroyed from the air, no invasion needed
2a). teh USSR was clearly not Neutral anymore so the USSR acting as impartial uncommitted facilitators was done
2b). While Japanese world views might still have allowed them to think the US and UK & Co were shy when it came to casualties, they had no such illusions about the USSR being willing to to suffer them if they became involved in any invasion. They also know that once the red army is standing on something the USSR is not going to let go of it
EDIT: there is also the point about the ongoing blockade, there was already food shortages on the main island, teh IJA probably wouldn't have cared that much. They know they will first in the food line, and had the attitude that the civilian's role was to primarily to give teh army what they needed to resist and then endure in order to eke out some kid of positive result. But once starvation starts kicking in it will kick in hard and fast
*and we have to remember the Japanese did not know how many bombs the US had, what production lines was like and so on. What they did know as was the thing their own guys had said was not feasible as a deliverable weapon was now deliverable as a weapon,
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Totally agree with this, unfortunately there is the somewhat commonly held view that the Japanese in WW2 were sitting around visiting China and helping other Asian nations be free of their colonial overlords and did NOTHING WRONG AT ALL to deserve a sudden and violent attack by those evil Westerners. This viewpoint was helped in the immediate post war period of the Japanese outright ignoring or hugely underplaying what they were actually like in WW2 and this was then not taught in schools until fairly recently and even then its still apparently quite downplayed.
Combine that with the post war fears of the effectiveness of the bomb and the Anti-nuclear movement where anything nuclear was satan and as the only country to actually use two (admittedly very small yield) bombs in combat it gave the protestors a very large target to tar and feather.
There was a good post here - on twitter in response to someone bleating about American war crimes in WW2 saying that the two bombs were indeed war crimes (they were not).
Its a grim and cruel irony that those nuclear flashes and the Emperor's hand being forced basically saved millions of lives. Because if Olympic had gone ahead, then it would have killed probably tens of millions of Japanese people and utterly ruined the country. The IJA was planning to use chemical and bio weapons against the Allied troops and their own civilians thinking that the 'weak' Westerners would slow down to help people and it would then infect them. In response the US would have probably drenched a city or three in mustard gas as well as continued burning them down.
If the IJA had used gas etc, then the WAllies would have retaliated once that gene was out the bottle too and more nukes would have been dropped, used in a semi-tactical sense that would have utterly ruined the country when combined with the mass death of civilians and any lingering bio/chemical effects.
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Dday had 60,000 Axis soldiers awaiting our invasion (thanks red army). According to D.M. Giangrecos “Hell to Pay” it was projected that on November 1, 1945 the Japanese were to have 917,000 men awaiting our invasion….
Admittedly most of those would have been armed civilians with spears and satchel charges though. There's a reason the US is still using its stockpile of purple hearts that were made in preparation for DOWNFALL/OLYMPIC.
Yes Japanese historians warning of the consequences of countries not reconciling themselves to their action in WW2 including a national mythology rising up about the war and seeing their actions and the actions through that mythology.
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Random responses to various comments.
In the mid 80s we had a kid that moved yo the US with his family from Japan, He FLUNKED a history quiz. It was about WW2 and he got the following Wrong. Who Japan was Allied against. That Japan had invaded and was fighting China, that Japan , That Japan invaded south East Asia. And he was 100% convinced that Japan was attacked and was fighting a defensive war to protect Asia and Japan from the Europeans. And he had NO concept about PH at all and was 10000% convinced that Japan declared war before any fighting started.
It was amazing. The teachers showed him some of the photos after the quiz and he was completely shocked. Other Japanese actions such as the Death march and the prisoner camps was also huge surprises. (He joined the class the day of the quiz, The teacher gave it to him not to grade b any t see what he new and how much he had to catch up to the rest of the class. He spoke very good English. But he was pulled from pub school at the end of the semester and i believe sent to a private school. My area was getting a fair amount of Japanese in it working for various Japanese companies at the time and iirc they had a small private school that more or less taught the Japanese curriculum. I always wondered if his Father didn’t want him to learn how bad Japan was. His father was old enough that he may well have fought in the war.
I know several people that worked/lived in Japan in the 80s,90s, and 00s and frm what they say Japan has done a good job at pretending they did nothing wrong in WW2
Oddly enough every time I have been to the USAF museum there has been Japanese tourists taking photos of Bockscar. And I have been there about 10 times. Always seamed odd to me.
I dont get the downplaying of what the Emperor said. The guy I literally referred to the Atom Bombs but know we sit here almost 80 years after the fact and say. ”He really didn’t mean it when he said the A-Bombs were part of the reason they surrendered. They really surrendered because of The USSRs week long war not because the US and GB and Australia and co. Had been kicking Japans ass for years and now could destroy one city with one bomb,.. ”
It is amazing how we can revise this..
what the heck proof do you need? And while I am sure Russias attack-helped to convince them, I find it funny that people put more emp on Japan loosing a mainland Territory then getting its cities and the factories they held atomized. Japan had been loozing territories it occupied for years by that point. And the only reason the US and Gzb had not gone after the territory the USSR invaded was because it was out of the way, and didn’t really help Japan any. But suddenly the lose of this frankly irrelevant territory is what drove Japan to surrender and the Firebombings and all the island hoping and the threat of invasion to the Main Islands and the Atom Bombs were all secondary to the lose of this territory..
Sure, you just keep thinking that.
In the mid 80s we had a kid that moved yo the US with his family from Japan, He FLUNKED a history quiz. It was about WW2 and he got the following Wrong. Who Japan was Allied against. That Japan had invaded and was fighting China, that Japan , That Japan invaded south East Asia. And he was 100% convinced that Japan was attacked and was fighting a defensive war to protect Asia and Japan from the Europeans. And he had NO concept about PH at all and was 10000% convinced that Japan declared war before any fighting started.
It was amazing. The teachers showed him some of the photos after the quiz and he was completely shocked. Other Japanese actions such as the Death march and the prisoner camps was also huge surprises. (He joined the class the day of the quiz, The teacher gave it to him not to grade b any t see what he new and how much he had to catch up to the rest of the class. He spoke very good English. But he was pulled from pub school at the end of the semester and i believe sent to a private school. My area was getting a fair amount of Japanese in it working for various Japanese companies at the time and iirc they had a small private school that more or less taught the Japanese curriculum. I always wondered if his Father didn’t want him to learn how bad Japan was. His father was old enough that he may well have fought in the war.
I know several people that worked/lived in Japan in the 80s,90s, and 00s and frm what they say Japan has done a good job at pretending they did nothing wrong in WW2
Oddly enough every time I have been to the USAF museum there has been Japanese tourists taking photos of Bockscar. And I have been there about 10 times. Always seamed odd to me.
I dont get the downplaying of what the Emperor said. The guy I literally referred to the Atom Bombs but know we sit here almost 80 years after the fact and say. ”He really didn’t mean it when he said the A-Bombs were part of the reason they surrendered. They really surrendered because of The USSRs week long war not because the US and GB and Australia and co. Had been kicking Japans ass for years and now could destroy one city with one bomb,.. ”
It is amazing how we can revise this..
what the heck proof do you need? And while I am sure Russias attack-helped to convince them, I find it funny that people put more emp on Japan loosing a mainland Territory then getting its cities and the factories they held atomized. Japan had been loozing territories it occupied for years by that point. And the only reason the US and Gzb had not gone after the territory the USSR invaded was because it was out of the way, and didn’t really help Japan any. But suddenly the lose of this frankly irrelevant territory is what drove Japan to surrender and the Firebombings and all the island hoping and the threat of invasion to the Main Islands and the Atom Bombs were all secondary to the lose of this territory..
Sure, you just keep thinking that.