Would Japan surrender conditionally without an invasion or atomic bombs?

[CaptainCalvert]

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,

But their nuclear physicists were good enough to distinguish between the residue of a uranium bomb (slow but relatively easy to make) and plutonium bomb (harder to make but potentially very much quicker to churn out).
How much influence they had on the decision makers, I can't say, but at least some senior military and political figures would have know they faced production line destruction.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

How much influence they had on the decision makers, I can't say, but at least some senior military and political figures would have know they faced production line destruction.

My memory wants to tell me Korechika Anami's faction were of the mindset that the Americans did not immediately possess more than two bombs and were unlikely to produce a third anytime soon.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

My memory wants to tell me Korechika Anami's faction were of the mindset that the Americans did not immediately possess more than two bombs and were unlikely to produce a third anytime soon.

After the Hiroshima uranium bomb, that would be a reasonable assumption, since while relatively simple, refinement and production of fissile uranium is very slow. But a plutonium bomb requires a reactor to make and an appreciation of implosion technology. A working one means the US has implosion technology, and a plutonium bomb means they have at least one working reactor.
Uranium bombs = essentially a bomb every few months, so tolerable when compared with conventional bombing. A plutonium bomb could mean monthly or even weekly bombings because production is dependento or number of reactors, rather than very slow refining processes. It is a whole level of pain above uranium bomb technology, and really does threaten destruction with negligible chance of intervention.

 

[DougM]

the Japanese government in 1941 was frankly delusional. and it was not any different un 1945.
It was living out the old joke: You see a physicist or A mathematician with a couple huge blackboards filled with complex equations working out some problem and at the last step in the equation it says ”Here a Miracle happens“.

Japan was convinced from when they started planning the attack on PH in 1941 that SOMETHING would make the US “give up”. They NEVER had a chance to win the. war by force of arms and they new ut from the beginning. They just expected some sort of miracle to happen and the US to give up. mostly because the shear racism of the Japanese at the time made them believe that only they were tough enough to withstand the death and destruction of the war. Which was historically ridiculous and and completely deluded. GB France and to a lesser degree the US as well as Russia and Germany and the rest of the ”weak willed westerners” had fought the bloddy WW1 battles and all of them had bern involved in various nasty wars such as the Crimean war or the American Civil war. So there was less then ZERO reason for the Japanese to assume that the USA and GB and their allies would just grow tired of the war and go home.
Yet this is not only what they believed in in 1941 and planned their entire war strategy on but then continued to believe this for years and part of them were so convinced of it that they tried to stage a coup at the very end.
This delusion was what they based the main island defence. around and was why they had the crazy idea of using untrained and virtually unarmed civilians to fight off the invasion. And this same delusion was why they had it in their mind that somehow the USSR was going to be able to negotiate a peace treaty on reasonable terms for Japan. Why did the ”believe” this right ip until the USSR declared war? Because they HAD to. it was obvious to anyone and everyone by 1944 that Japan had lost the war and was frankly doomed. It fleet was either sunk was was afloat because the US and allies had not gotten a chance yo sink it yet. It had bern demonstrated that they could take any island they wanted from Japan and that they had better Aircraft and ships and technology and could out produce Japan by extreme amounts and they did this while concentrating on fighting Germany. So the crazy folks in Charge of Japan had to find “hope” of somehow pulling out a win somewhere and the only options were that the US would tire of the blood shed and go home and/or the USSR would somehow step in and convince/make the US agree to end the war on terms Japan could accept.
This is exactly the same insanity that makes some gamblers who have lost almost everything bet the last they have in hopes of pulling off a miraculous win.
It is insane but.. it is all they have.
So in Japans case they had two things they were gambling on or hoping for. 1) The USSR somehow saves them or 2) they can cause so much death defending the home islands that the US gets sick and gives up.

As stated these were NEVER going to happen. The USSR could have threatened the US with war and the US still would not have accepted the terms that Japan thought they could get. But insane people are by definition… Insane. And lets not Sugar coat it Japan leaders was EVERY BIT as insane as Germany‘s ever was. And at least as racist. They just didn't have a chance to perform a genocide because they didnt have the races they looked down on under there control in significant numbers so the opportunity was just not there. But when it was on a smaller scale such as Bataan and in various other prisoner of war camps such as we see on the infamous Burma railway construction camps which were basically slave/concentration/death camps and other such incidents such as the various abuses of prisoners and and the “alleged” tortures and even such and the horrors of Unit 731.
So it should be NO surprise that the Japanese leaders wer insane and deluded, So trying to find a rational solution or a rational reason why they believed something is impossible because they WERE NOT rational in any way shape or form.
And post like this topic trying to find a war to end the war with less death and destruction and or without the horrors of the Abombs or the firestorms or the. invasion miss the. simple fact that you cant reason with mad/rabid dogs. You simply have yo put them down.
And in WW2 we had 4 or 5 absolutely insane monsters running various countries, And the Allies had to out down three of them. (Japan,Germany and Italy) and allied with one of them (The USSR) to do it. and the last was not as obviously insane yet (Communist China).
So no peace could be archived with these three countries until the leaders were gone.
And yes they let the Emporer live and continue but he was mostly a figurehead befire and durring the war and was even mire so after the war. It was (mostly) the military leaders that had to go because there were Bat S@#$ Crazy.

So no. there was absolutly no way short of forcing them to surrender unconditionally at gun point that Japan was going to be fixed. And Japan was never going yo surrender if left on their won without EXTREME violence and the t hreat of more extreme violence.
I know today we find that appalling. But you cant reason with some folks just as you cant “reason” with a rabid animal. You simply have to kill it.
You folks that think otherwise need to go back and watch Old Yeller.

 

[Nivek]

Excatly, no nukes (they started late or never cared) downfall happens plain and simple, maybe that should have happened

 

[Ambusher11]

After Khalkhin Gol they settled their border disputes and there were no more clashes. Japan after all had sat on its hands during Barbarossa, and the Soviets had yet to try taking advantage of Japan's pre-occupation in the Pacific. Expecting that to continue after the Soviets stormed Berlin was definitely a failure of imagination though.

It definitely was a failure of imagination for sure - especially since you're wrong about the border disputes being settled after Khalkhin Gol, border incidents, while never getting as bad as Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol, continued after Khalkhin Gol and even after the signing of the Neutrality Pact in 1941, and while the border incidents temporarily decreased due to Operation Barbarossa, they started increasing again from late 1943 onwards. Also, the Japanese were considering an invasion during Barbarossa, but decided against it due to the Soviets being more resilient than expected and the American oil embargo (and after the success of the first phase of their southern offensive in early 1942 until things started going downhill for Japan starting in June 1942, I think they might've been considering launching an invasion of the Soviet Union in 1944). As for why the Soviets didn't take advantage of Japan's pre-occupation in the Pacific, well, it should've been easy for the Japanese to see this as being due to the Soviets not wanting to get into a two-front war.

 

[TDM]

Like you say the Japanese leaders and population had more immediate concerns than a Soviet invasion of Manchuria.. When the surrender question came up the Red Army was just starting its attacks and the defeat of the Kawungtung Army not yet apparent. The Japanese leaders and certainly the population had no idea the Soviet armies were going to overrun Manchuria and have enclaves in Korea in a few more weeks. At this point, when the critical cabinet meetings occurred the primary effect of the Soviet DoW was to real the bankruptcy of the strategy of the USSR as a friend and counter weight to the British/US alliance. This friendship and support from the USSR for Japan was one of the foundation pillars of the strategy for continuing the war. The failure of that strategy was apparent even before the Cabinet members read the first paragraph of the Soviet DoW messages.

Yep, but remember Japan's "Big 6" (Supreme war council in 1945) were military guys in 5 of 6 positions, so the view of the armre forces was very much front and centre in the decision making processes.



But yes

6th Aug - Hiroshima bombing
8th Aug - Soviet Declaration of war
9th Aug - Nagasaki bombing & Soviet invasion of Manchuria
15th Aug - Hirohito's 1st proclamation

It all pretty tight timing!

 

[TDM]

But their nuclear physicists were good enough to distinguish between the residue of a uranium bomb (slow but relatively easy to make) and plutonium bomb (harder to make but potentially very much quicker to churn out).
How much influence they had on the decision makers, I can't say, but at least some senior military and political figures would have know they faced production line destruction.

After the Hiroshima uranium bomb, that would be a reasonable assumption, since while relatively simple, refinement and production of fissile uranium is very slow. But a plutonium bomb requires a reactor to make and an appreciation of implosion technology. A working one means the US has implosion technology, and a plutonium bomb means they have at least one working reactor.
Uranium bombs = essentially a bomb every few months, so tolerable when compared with conventional bombing. A plutonium bomb could mean monthly or even weekly bombings because production is dependento or number of reactors, rather than very slow refining processes. It is a whole level of pain above uranium bomb technology, and really does threaten destruction with negligible chance of intervention.

It's hard to say. The Japanese research guys were having to rapidly un lean what they thought they knew and make assumptions about how the US had done both and how much more they had in the pipline or if there was a pipeline. So I'm not sure they would have been making claims with hard certainties about what teh US may or may not have lined up. Either way the Army & Navy guys in the Big 6 were certainly questioning any claims. Basically I don't think anyone knew with certainty what the US capabilities were.

The Big 6 were still split right up until the very end, apparently it took Hirohito himself to make a direct intervention to bring a conclusion.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

it hard to say. The Japanese research guys were having to rapidly un lean what they thought they knew and make assumptions about how the US had done both and how much more they had in the pipline or if there was a pipeline. So I'm not sure they would have been making claims with hard certainties about what teh US may or may not have lined up. Either way the Army guys in teh Big 6 were certainly questioning any claims. Basically I don't think anyone knew with certainty what the US capabilities were.

The Big 6 were still split right up until the very end, apparently it took Hirohito himself t make direct intervention to bring a conclusion.

Yes they were. And yes the minutes of the meetings clearly show Hirohitos unprecedented but entirely legal intervention broke the war faction. A interesting bit of trivia: Prime minister Suzuiki still had a bullet in his chest, from a 1920s assassination attempt. A reminder this was not a abstract political debate. Everyone there knew there was a very real chance of extralegal intervention by either side. I suspect there was something going on behind the scenes here as well. Four decades ago when I lived in Japan I had a Japanese acquaintance explain to me how important shadow leaders outside the government offices were. If I am understanding what he told me the Emperors intervention in the cabinet meeting was not from his individual choice or spontaneous. He may very well have been in separate discussions with other powerful military officers, and more important key Zaibatsu leaders who all had opinions on the continuation or end of the war.

 

[Samsonov]

So let's assume the US goes for this strategy. Surely Japan has to eventually surrender, surely they cannot keep this going for five or ten more years? Meanwhile, the US could radically draw down mobilisation and war productions because Japan will have basically no ability to fight back via planes or ships if further damage is kept being done to war production. A dystopian novel set in a 1960s blockaded Japan which still refuses surrender could be a great read but Japan surely eventually surrenders. I think the key problem would be liberating China. Manchuria and India, and the civilian death taking place until that occurs.

 

[Nivek]

So let's assume the US goes for this strategy. Surely Japan has to eventually surrender, surely they cannot keep this going for five or ten more years? Meanwhile, the US could radically draw down mobilisation and war productions because Japan will have basically no ability to fight back via planes or ships if further damage is kept being done to war production. A dystopian novel set in a 1960s blockaded Japan which still refuses surrender could be a great read but Japan surely eventually surrenders. I think the key problem would be liberating China. Manchuria and India, and the civilian death taking place until that occurs.

Nah even japanese themselves would collapse and we could see a french revolution on the islands

And downfall was happening anyway

 

[Nevarinemex]

Note this was the good old days when they named an operation without concern it offending anyone. I'm looking at you "Operation Enduring Freedom" formerly known as "Operation Infinite Justice".

We Americans are into our acronyms. It plays into our sense of "Strategery",
as W put it.

I vaguely remember a 4th Division (US) briefing. I think that it was during Gulf 2.
The title was "Operation Ivy Liberation". Needless to say, that was too honest for
CentCom taste. It changed immediately as did the briefers.

 

[Normal for Norfolk]

So let's assume the US goes for this strategy. Surely Japan has to eventually surrender, surely they cannot keep this going for five or ten more years? Meanwhile, the US could radically draw down mobilisation and war productions because Japan will have basically no ability to fight back via planes or ships if further damage is kept being done to war production. A dystopian novel set in a 1960s blockaded Japan which still refuses surrender could be a great read but Japan surely eventually surrenders. I think the key problem would be liberating China. Manchuria and India, and the civilian death taking place until that occurs.

India? You realise the 14th Army had liberated Burma by this point?

 

[Nevarinemex]

A dystopian novel set in a 1960s blockaded Japan which still refuses surrender could be a great read but Japan surely eventually surrenders. I think the key problem would be liberating China. Manchuria and India, and the civilian death taking place until that occurs.

I thought the Comintern was abolished in 1943? That would cover their China, Manchuria and India franchises! I'm kidding.

Suppose that if Azad Hind allies earlier with Mao? Bose had declared war on both the British and Americans, I think. INA was a
spent force by 1945, though Indian Independence is achieved.

Yes. Burma was removed from under the Japanese boot at this time. However, Burma was mostly liberated by the Indian Army.
And returns to British rule.

If Japan does not surrender, I'm suspecting that they lose Korea, Sakhalin, the Kuriles and Hokkaido. I believe that the Japanese
are savvy enough to understand the geopolitical implications are not good. Why not throw in with whatever the Americans are
offering? An American occupation is probably more promising than either Soviet or British Dominion occupations.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

A point that has not been raised in this discussion is the third item, or more accurately the first, that hit the Cabinet. Data collected by the Japanese agricultural dept through the summer had not shown a good rice crop for 1945. When coupled in late July it was looking really bad, and official report amounted to 'Rice crop failed, famine ahead'. widespread malnutrition, food riots, plummeting morale among the soldiers in Japan as their parents and younger siblings suffered, ect... were contemplated by the cabinet and emperor.

 

[Bellacinos]

A point that has not been raised in this discussion is the third item, or more accurately the first, that hit the Cabinet. Data collected by the Japanese agricultural dept through the summer had not shown a good rice crop for 1945. When coupled in late July it was looking really bad, and official report amounted to 'Rice crop failed, famine ahead'. widespread malnutrition, food riots, plummeting morale among the soldiers in Japan as their parents and younger siblings suffered, ect... were contemplated by the cabinet and emperor.

Japan did have a horrific crop failure that was projected to kill 3 million in the fall of 1945, you just don’t hear about it by then the US was pumping so much food into Japan that it averted millions of deaths, but had Japan surrendered probably at least 5 million starve to death by November 1st 1945. Who knows how many more die in the fire bombing raids.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

A point that has not been raised in this discussion is the third item, or more accurately the first, that hit the Cabinet. Data collected by the Japanese agricultural dept through the summer had not shown a good rice crop for 1945. When coupled in late July it was looking really bad, and official report amounted to 'Rice crop failed, famine ahead'. widespread malnutrition, food riots, plummeting morale among the soldiers in Japan as their parents and younger siblings suffered, ect... were contemplated by the cabinet and emperor.

Japan did have a horrific crop failure that was projected to kill 3 million in the fall of 1945, you just don’t hear about it by then the US was pumping so much food into Japan that it averted millions of deaths, but had Japan surrendered probably at least 5 million starve to death by November 1st 1945. Who knows how many more die in the fire bombing raids.

The Japanese high command would probably just say that once several million starve to death, supply will finally meet demand and a new equilibrium will be established.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

I appreciate the time and effort you put into this response, but my point wasn't to vindicate the anti-nuke argument. The thread, if you read it carefully, was supposed to be an exploration of what paths Japan might take (or be capable of taking) if it lost all its overseas possessions, basically all its offensive capabilities, and was reduced as close as possible to defeat without actually being defeated. The topic is not about whether the US would have decided to allow this scenario to occur. The inspiration for the thread was an exchange between two others I observed discussing the situation. I personally believe the atomic bombs were the best solution considering the circumstances.

I think a certain Decisive Darkness comes to mind.... you should go read it if you're unaware (prett sure I remember seeing your name in that thread at least once though!)

 

[jlckansas]

The IJA high command even in 1945 was planning offensives in China. They were ignoring all the other places that were going on and expecting them to just be able to hold on a little while longer and when we are done with China we can turn our troops and resources from there to make new offensives to take back what we have lost. This also worked with their strategy of not having to depend on the IJN for help with anything.

 

[Bellacinos]

I think a certain Decisive Darkness comes to mind.... you should go read it if you're unaware (prett sure I remember seeing your name in that thread at least once though!)

Decisive darkness should be mandated reading in HS about this topic, because they try to hard to both sides the atomic bomb debate, when the idea that Truman could have done something else is out of step with political reality.