# Kyūjō incident and the 1941-1946? War **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 25, 2016, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078 "2016-02-25T10:15:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/21 "2016-02-26T09:55:29Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Why was there a rush to invade Japan if they didn’t surrender? Political expediency? Seems like it’d be easier to just starve them out until all resistance withered away, depopulating the whole nation if needed. Was there a fear the Russians would invade Japan and split it up like Europe? Did they even have the sealift capability at the time? Because it would have taken years and years to starve out the IJA. They would have taken the rice from babies to feed themselves first. The US did not want and could not have continued to keep 12 million people in uniform indefinitely. People back home were tired of the war and wanted it finished. The question about sealift capacity has been answered several times in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/22 "2016-02-26T10:32:13Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Why was there a rush to invade Japan if they didn’t surrender? Political expediency? Seems like it’d be easier to just starve them out until all resistance withered away, depopulating the whole nation if needed. Besieging a country isn’t like besieging a castle. Even if Japan was incapable of meeting its own needs without the lebensraum on the mainland, it would at least be able to stretch any stockpiles further since those stockpiles are only being depleted by the difference between consumption and production, and not by gross consumption alone. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/23 "2016-02-26T14:52:02Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Okay, I admit that my understanding of this issue was colored by the fact that I happened to read Alperovitz first. I appreciate the efforts by TokyoBayer and Grumman (expletives notwithstanding) to broaden my knowledge. I’m sorry this thread got hijacked – I tried to prevent it, but I should have known better. (To be fair to Alperovitz, he was more interested in the calculations that Stimson, Byrnes, and Truman were making in June and July – so for THAT, those figures really do matter). It’s cool. Sorry to be that abrupt. However, Alperovitz is engaging is serious revisionism to make those fundamentally dishonest claims. He would have had to have scouted high and low and fudged to get numbers like that, and blatantly ignored mountains of evidence to make that argument. The simply fact, as unsatisfying for revisionists as it is, is that the Allies simply wanted the war to end as soon as possible. Truman, et al simply viewed the atomic bomb as one more weapon to us. That’s it. They had already rained fire on Japanese cities destroying hundreds of thousands of civilians in order to destroy the country. Truman was much more concerned about the potential number of US casualties and he wasn’t cherry picking his numbers. One of my favorite quotes about the atomic bomb revisionism: > [@Hhistorian Barton Bernstein](#): > > This is really a post-Hiroshima analysis, growing with more fervor as the distance from Hiroshima grows, about the moral legitimacy and the moral justifications for the act, and not about understanding the decision-making leading to the act. > [@](#): > > So, getting back to the OP – now that we’ve answered the question of the likelihood of the Soviets getting as far as the home islands (unlikely, it seems) – we can focus on the OP’s other speculations, such as whether a third (or fourth, etc.) nuke would have been used in conjunction with a conventional invasion. I’ll let others take it from here! That’s a given. There were another seven or so which would be ready by November 1st and some were considering using them in a tactical role. > [@Grumman](#): > > Besieging a country isn’t like besieging a castle. Even if Japan was incapable of meeting its own needs without the lebensraum on the mainland, it would at least be able to stretch any stockpiles further since those stockpiles are only being depleted by the difference between consumption and production, and not by gross consumption alone. They were actually facing quite a serious shortage. By the summer of '45, the average caloric intake was less than required for normal living. Workers in certain industries, such as coal miners, as well as the military took higher priority, so many civilians would be facing starvation if the war continued much longer. Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japanese waterways and harbors was devastating in the final six months of the war. Not only was Japan dependent on foreign sources for basic foodstuff, it was also dependent on water transport for rice and other foods grown in Hokkaido. However, an authoritarian government which would allow hundreds and thousands of civilians die in firebombings would have allowed millions to die of starvation. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/24 "2016-02-26T16:01:26Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > Anyone care to speculate on how things would have panned out, if Hatanaka had had his way? Assuming DOWNFALL went ahead in November, 1945 as planned? Would most of the Japanese people have willingly thrown themselves at American guns for the Emperor? More nukes dropped on major cities? Huge American casualties, thrown back into the sea? It would involve a staggering body count, even by WW2 standards. The fighting on the beaches would be brutal in the initial stages. It’s unlikely that the US would be thrown back, overwhelming firepower and numbers would likely prevent that, and the Japanese were very limited in heavy equipment and ammunition. IIRC there was no plan to drop any more atomic bombs on cities, the bombs would be used to assist the invasion - no one was really that concerned about radiation at the time, and there was no special moral value attached to atomic bombs. Once the landings finished, the full assault would not take place until 1946. The continued blockade of Japan would likely lead to mass starvation and exposure deaths over the winter, since Japan was already low on food and fuel. In the meantime, Soviet Forces would take more (all?) of Manchuria and Korea, and possibly move into China. Allied forces were too overwhelming for there to be any kind of turnaround once troops were in Japan, but there would be resistance by whatever was left in Japan. The aftermath of the war would be very different - Japan would probably still get US aid in rebuilding, but would be a much weaker country because her population would be much less. The US would probably have taken more casualties than in the entire rest of the war, which would put a different spin on things. The Soviets would probably lay claim to more territory since they would occupy more. Things in China might have ended up differently - with idle armies in the area, there might have been more assistance to either side in the Chinese civil war. Nuclear weapons would probably be viewed differently - IMO there’s a big risk in this scenario that they get seen as more of a big tactical bomb since there would be a lot more dropped, and get used more in other conflicts. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/25 "2016-02-26T17:16:14Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Why was there a rush to invade Japan if they didn’t surrender? Political expediency? Seems like it’d be easier to just starve them out until all resistance withered away, depopulating the whole nation if needed. Was there a fear the Russians would invade Japan and split it up like Europe? Did they even have the sealift capability at the time? All you need to do is look at the Siege of Leningrad (not to mention the Berlin Blockade) to conclude three things: 1. It’s virtually impossible to completely cut off supplies from a city, much less an island nation that stretches farther than California north to south 2. The Siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. The Berlin Blockade went on for almost 11 months. A Japanese blockade would not have ended the war in any reasonable timeline. 3. As many as 1.5 million people starved in Leningrad. Imagine what would have happened in Japan. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/26 "2016-02-26T17:19:35Z")
Sounds good, TokyoBayer. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/27 "2016-02-26T17:59:54Z")
As to what could possibly be gained by blocking transmission of the Emperor’s speech and prolonging the war - there were fanatical Japanese military and political leaders who thought there was great shame in surrendering, and much glory to be had if most or all Japanese perished in defense of their homeland, including the civilian population. Apparently enough of these “leaders” concluded that it wasn’t quite so glorious if everyone died in atomic bombings. We’re talking about depraved, sick minds here. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/28 "2016-02-26T19:08:58Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > And what about the wider impact - the Soviets would have continued plowing through Manchuria, and if the Americans got desperate they may have been forced to ask them for help, running the risk of losing all of Korea, or perhaps partitioning Japan? Everything else seems to have been covered but to expound on this: the US had asked the Soviet Union to enter the war against Japan at Yalta in February 1945. Stalin had agreed to declare war on Japan within three months of the conclusion of the war with Germany; Germany had surrendered May 9th (Moscow time), the invasion of Manchuria began August 9th, three months later to the day. Soviet interests in the area had already been [hammered out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference): > [@](#): > > Truman wanted the USSR to enter the Pacific War with the Allies. One Soviet precondition for a declaration of war against Japan was an American official recognition of Mongolian independence from China (Mongolian People’s Republic had already been the Soviet satellite state in World War One and World War Two), and a recognition of Soviet interests in the Manchurian railways and Port Arthur (but not asking the Chinese to lease), as well as deprivation of Japanese soil (such as Sakhalin and Kuril Islands) to return to Russian custody since the Treaty of Portsmouth; these were agreed without Chinese representation, consultation or consent, with the American desire to end war early by reducing American casualties. Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany. Stalin pledged to Truman to keep the nationality of the Korean Peninsula intact as Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. This was all with the expectation at the time that the war with Japan would culminate with an Allied (meaning British, Australian, New Zealand, etc – **not** Soviet), but almost entirely American invasion of Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/29 "2016-02-26T19:16:09Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I know this isn’t GQ, but I’d be interested in seeing a cite for the “million Purple Hearts” order, famous or not. The Battle of Kursk alone cost Germany 55,000 casualties, versus almost 180,000 Soviet casualties. That’s out of armies of ~1 million and 2 million. Given that something like 10 million combatants would have been involved in an invasion the home islands half a million Purple Hearts is probably an underestimate. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/30 "2016-02-26T21:26:42Z")
[Purple Hearts](http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1801) ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/31 "2016-02-26T22:33:32Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > All you need to do is look at the Siege of Leningrad (not to mention the Berlin Blockade) to conclude three things: Both of them had outside help (Berlin airlift, road of life). No one was coming to save Japan. It would have to be invaded eventually if they didn’t surrender, but it seems softening them up first would be a good idea. Wasn’t one of the fears that every civilian would come at the Americans with whatever they could pick up, any IED they could cook up? Hard to do if they’re emaciated and dying in the streets. One thing I didn’t consider is that would kill thousands of Allied POWs. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078/32 "2016-02-27T07:57:02Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Everything else seems to have been covered but to expound on this: the US had asked the Soviet Union to enter the war against Japan at Yalta in February 1945. Stalin had agreed to declare war on Japan within three months of the conclusion of the war with Germany; Germany had surrendered May 9th (Moscow time), the invasion of Manchuria began August 9th, three months later to the day. Soviet interests in the area had already been [hammered out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference):This was all with the expectation at the time that the war with Japan would culminate with an Allied (meaning British, Australian, New Zealand, etc – **not** Soviet), but almost entirely American invasion of Japan. And the agreement to [del]divide Korea[/del] disarm the Japanese by the Soviets in the north and US in the south, separated at the 38th parallel was made at Potsdam. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > As to what could possibly be gained by blocking transmission of the Emperor’s speech and prolonging the war - there were fanatical Japanese military and political leaders who thought there was great shame in surrendering, and much glory to be had if most or all Japanese perished in defense of their homeland, including the civilian population. Apparently enough of these “leaders” concluded that it wasn’t quite so glorious if everyone died in atomic bombings. As per earlier posts, the militants – all of which were military leaders, none of the civilian leaders agreed – believed they could cause enough casualties for the US to accept better terms to end the war. The Emperor was able to persuade the leadership to accept the (almost) unconditional terms in which he was saved but they were not. Oh well, all’s fair in love and war and if the military leaders get executed, them’s the breaks. > [@](#): > > We’re talking about depraved, sick minds here. Well, yes. > [@marshmallow](#): > > Both of them had outside help (Berlin airlift, road of life). No one was coming to save Japan. It would have to be invaded eventually if they didn’t surrender, but it seems softening them up first would be a good idea. Wasn’t one of the fears that every civilian would come at the Americans with whatever they could pick up, any IED they could cook up? Hard to do if they’re emaciated and dying in the streets. Not really necessary. Remember, this was a conventional war with regular battle lines and Allied troops who would not be under nearly the same restrictions against civilians if necessary. Also, they were already sufficiently softened up and would not have been attacking tanks with bamboo spears. > [@](#): > > One thing I didn’t consider is that would kill thousands of Allied POWs. The Japanese already were planning on killing the 100,000 Allied POWs when the end came. It needs to be noted that there were only 56 Chinese POWs released at the end of the war. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kyujo-incident-and-the-1941-1946-war/747078.md?page=1)