If unicorns existed, would they have blue eyes?
If Japan really retreated to its islands, there would have been no need to invade. The Japanese would have been begging Americans to come … bringing food and oil!
If the Japanese had retreated to the main islands, would the Allies still have planned for invasion?
Maybe some would. Most wouldn’t.
No, of course they would not have.
The Allies were going to invade Japan if Japan didn’t surrender first. The plans were all drawn up and the idea of starving Japan out had been considered and rejected. It was a done deal.
Japan withdrawing more troops to Japan would have made very little difference. There is a practical limit to the number of troops that can be placed in a particular space to effectively defend that space. Adding more men beyond that number simply would give the Allies more men to kill, and the Allied firepower brought to bear would have been truly devastating, including additional nuclear weapons. This was further exacerbated by the fact that Japan already had more troops in the home islands that they could effectively arm and equip.
It is interesting to note that American planners originally didn’t even bother to include non-American forces in their plans; they didn’t feel the trouble was worth it and that the USA could provide all the forces needed. They did end up working in some Commonwealth forces but it still was a small portion of the proposed invasion force. Had Japan somehow managed to repatriate capable troops in substantial numbers, that would obviously have changed.
We were tired of the war, but we were still PISSED about Pearl Harbor and the Phillipines.
One thing you seem to be overlooking is that the intensity of combat in the Pacific was positively insane compared to the Western Front. It was more comparable to the more intense sectors of the Eastern Front than anything else. No quarter was asked, and none was given. The difference was a certain degree of vitriolic hatred for the Japanese that wasn’t present against the Germans.
And we had ALREADY progressed well along the path of utterly destroying every pagoda and city in Japan by the time the nuclear weapons came available. Gen. LeMay had figured out that because of the way Japanese structures were built, incendiary bombs were very effective. So we dropped them in B-29 raids of hundreds of bombers at relatively low level.
The most destructive and lethal bombing mission of the war wasn’t either of the nuclear strikes on Japan or the Hamburg or Dresden missions in Europe, but rather the conventional bombing of Tokyo on 9-10 March 1945, where more than 100,000 Japanese were killed outright, with another million left homeless, and over 267,000 structures were destroyed.
And Tokyo was far from the only city destroyed:
The US had every intention of invading Japan if the nuclear strikes didn’t work- they had been preparing for quite a while- training, building, moving units, etc…
Just by the way, in my professional opinion, the US would have lost had it attempted to invade Japan. If someone want to talk about that we can.
I do not see how the side with nuclear weapons loses. The fighting would have been brutal but the Allies were overwhelmingly stronger.
The number of available nuclear weapons by November '45 is an open question. Problems with the Hanford reactor historically drastically reduced the expected production of Plutonium.
Admittedly the Japanese capitualtion made it less of an issue, they could shut down production for months and wartime they might have continued.
Regardless, I don’t see the Japenese winning short of Divine Wind Mk 3.
That is inaccurate. The US and its allies had every intention of invading regardless of the outcome of the nuclear strikes and the actual invasion had nuclear weapons use planned by July '45*.
The nuclear bomb was never supposed to be an alternative, it was supposed to be complementary.
(*probably would not have used it, since the Trinity test showed the yield to be several magnitudes larger than expected, which made use on the battlefield iffy, but again, not an alternative).
I disagree. If you’d like to lay out your rationale I’d be interested, but with full air and sea superiority over Japan the US wouldn’t have lost, even had we invaded alone (which we wouldn’t have been…the Soviets were already starting to stage men and equipment for their own invasion of the northern parts of the island chain, and in fact did take several of the northern islands which, IIRC, they still hold to this day). No matter how you set it up, we’d have won in the end, regardless.
This isn’t to say that the butchers bill wouldn’t have been extreme. The US had printed up something like 500k purple hearts just for the initial invasion plans. But even had the Japanese managed to stop the initial beachheads, something that was unlikely, they had very little way to get large numbers of reinforcements or supplies to the areas, as they would have had even more of a logistics issue than Germany did trying to support and reinforce after D-Day. Even if we assume they had mountains of hidden supplies and didn’t have to worry about actually having the material to support the field army they would need (which they didn’t have), they had no way to move it around to counter other landings or breakthroughs. They would have cut us up pretty bad, initially, but long term? They were doomed, even if one assumed every Japanese would be willing to sacrifice themselves to defending the home islands and repelling the invaders.
This, of course, leaves out the atomic bombs which, if we actually had them and used them and had the same number in the pipeline would have allowed us to drop 2-3 more in 6 months or so, with another 2-3 every 6-8 months after that. Even without that, however, there was no way Japan could survive indefinitely or that the US would lose.
Apologies for the late response to this, but you may be missing my point.
Although a home-based army that uses “suicide tactics” would cost any invader dearly, it is not an army that could invade other countries. In other words, what’s the downside to simply ignoring it? Not only would Japan be no threat to the region or the globe, it would be unable to build up its armed forces to the degree necessary to be a threat in the foreseeable future - it is an island and so isolated from everything, including supply of the raw materials essential for an offensive, ocean-transported army.
Indeed that was the navy’s plan, just starve them out. However, that would have been worse in many ways that using the Bomb.
And how would we get our POWs back?
Of course after a couple of months of starving them out that wouldn’t be a issue.
Not to mention they still had planes and warships, and would undoubtedly send suicide attacks on our Navy. And the Japanese still had a very large army in China.
The down sides to just ignoring it is that you’d be committed to basically an indefinite blockade thousands of miles from the nearest large logistic base. Sure, you could support that through staging (as we were) using smaller bases and stockpiles, but that’s going to be a strain year in and year out. And all the while, the Japanese would be trying to rebuild. Sure, Japan is short of some key materials, but they would have had some stockpiles, and no blockade is ever 100%. Eventually, you’d get tired of the constant blockade and leave…no one could do that forever, not even the US. Ships wear out, and so do troops. And when you do, Japan would rebuild. And they would have the same evil folks in charge, only this time they would have a serious chip on their shoulders AND the myth of the invulnerable home land, safe from invasion and conquest would be even more firmly in their minds. What sorts of things do you suppose they could or would do in that situation?
This leaves aside the fact that if the US didn’t want to do it, the Soviets STILL would have anyway, or what would happen to our troops or myriad other things (including how politically impossible such a fantasy really was back then…the blockade thing had been debated and rejected and wasn’t going to happen). It just wasn’t in the cards, and, frankly, it would have been stupid for us to go down that road anyway, IMHO. You don’t leave a beaten enemy with a serious grudge the room and time to rebuild or what you get is WWII version 2.0 10 or 20 years later. Just like what we got with Germany and WWI. Better to do what we did. Now we have a trading partner and ally in Japan, and a powerful one to support us in a region that is extremely important to the US and the world wrt trade and everything else, rather than a beaten enemy who remained unconquered with a grudge.
I’ve posted this before - here’s a transcript detailing a phone conversation between General Hull on Marshall’s staff and Col. Seaman of the Manhattan project, on Aug 13, talking about how many more bombs could be delivered if needed. Some fascinating points in it - according to Hull, if they had a third bomb ready then, they would have already dropped it. There was going to be a third bomb ready on the 19th, and it would possibly be dropped immediately. After that, there wouldn’t be another bomb ready until early September, but then there’d be 3/month for the next few months. Hull said there was currently a debate going on as to whether to drop them as they became available, or to hold them and drop them all at once, or to hold them and use them as part of an invasion. Essentially they were thinking that if two bombs didn’t convince them to surrender, there was no reason to think a third would, so maybe they needed to rethink how to use the bombs.
So at the time at least, they were planning the invasion with 3 atomic bombs per month. If things had gotten that far there wouldn’t be a Japan right now, just the American Protectorate of the East Asian archipelago.
Sure the economy was doing great but the war was being financed thru war bonds and those were not being sold so fast anymore. That is also why they still had important people back home still stumping to buy war bonds in 45.
Also troops were tiring of the war and wanted to return to their lives. Their was a near mutiny from soldiers in europe when told they were going to have to go to japan to fight. Remember these troops were all draftees.
We needed the war to end.
holy crap 3 bombs a month? that place would of been like the 40s version of the Pripyat (i can’t get the spelling right sorry) exclusion zone by the 3rd or 4th drop …
What ive always wondered is if we invaded japan would of that escalated the fighting in china?
I’ve read years ago that we were worried even if japan was invaded that the command in china would go rouge and continue fighting …
Some POWs, including some members of George Bush’ crew, were cannibalized by their Japanese captors.
It was know that POWs were held in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, I do not recall which city.
On doing a little more research, you’re right- the bombs AND the looming threat of invasion were both intended to put consequences into refusing the Potsdam Ultimatum. (although I’m sure they hoped deep-down that the bombs would drive the Japanese to surrender)
Sure the troops *in Europe *had a ‘end’ to the war, then the rugs was pulled out from under them. But in the Pacific, the troops were ready and able. They had seen the sort of stuff the “Japs” did, and invading the homes islands was fairly popular as those things go.
The Invasion would have gone off. Casualties would have been high, especially among the Japanese, even their civilians. Not only would the Allies have had many deaths, the Japanese would have had maybe 10-100 times the number lost due to The Bomb.
We expected to have 200,000-300000 dead, and over 500,000 wounded. In Okinawa, were we lost 14000, the Axis lost nearly 100000, with a addl 150000 civilians dead. Extrapolating from this means 1Million dead Japanese soldiers (they had 4M) and 1.5M civilians dead- not to mention those dead from starvation. The Bomb was a mercy.
Some argue that it was the Russians adding their forces to an invasion that tipped the balance. Instead of getting part of Japan, the Soviets got North Korea.
The Soviets did get some contested Japanese islands, as I recall.
Don’t forget that the Soviets had declared war on Japan two days after Hiroshima (the deadline they’d agreed to at Potsdam) after quietly shipping 1.5 million troops to the Manchurian border. They had the Kwantung forces outnumbered, outgunned, and out-everything-elsed. Despite that, and the fact that the Japanese had officially surrendered on August 15, the Kwantung kept fighting through the end of the month.
How would they change color? :dubious: