Stalin was a notorious liar, and a mass murderer. Stalin had invaded Poland two weeks after Hitler did, and continued on Hitler’s side until Hitler decided to invade Russia. Only then did Uncle Joe join the Allies.
Was Stalin keeping his promise to declare war three months after VE day, or did Stalin assume Imperial Japan would surrender shortly after the first atomic bomb was dropped?
Discussion tends to focus on variations of the A-bombs debate but that would only be one factor and not necessarily the most important.
A catastrophic famine would have struck Japan by winter '45-46, a close run thing as it was with the US shipping in lots of food, potentially killing a lot more people than nuclear attacks or firebombing had or would, more than direct civilian deaths in an invasion. People could leave cities where bombing, fire or nuclear, could pile up big death tolls. And that was happening. But there was no solution to lack of enough food in Japan. Likewise it’s an unknown exactly how fanatically Japanese would have fought an invasion, as in general suicidal civilian mobilization, but again not enough food for sure.
Another significant development could have been by the Soviets. Firstly they’d surely have occupied all of Korea not just the northern half, since US move there was only after the armistice, no near term plan to invade with Japan still fighting. Then there’s another perennial debate as to whether they could/would invade Hokkaido by short range amphibious operations supported by land based a/c. IOW the simple fact the Soviets didn’t have a navy remotely comparable to the USN doesn’t mean this couldn’t have happened, since they were approaching from a much shorter distance, a few miles from Kunishir (in the Kuriles which they took in August) only a couple of 100 miles to the undefended port of Rumoi they would have taken in one Soviet plan, across the Sea of Japan from Soviet Maritime Province. The Japanese 5th Area Army on Hokkaido had only 2 divisions and an additional brigade, spread around with nothing in that area. Moreover since USN carrier strikes in July sank most of the Honshu-Hokkaido ferries the Japanese had very little scope to reinforce or even resupply their forces, likewise fuel there to support moving air units there. But Soviet shipping limitations would limited their invading force to a few divisions and one or fewer per echelon. It’s not clear if the Soviets would have viewed the risk/reward of this as worthwhile, and they’d tacitly agreed not to do it. But it’s a possibility in an extended war.
Yes.
He had a great excuse for a land grab; “FDR asked me to!”
The Russians declaring war, and being astoundingly successful at it, changes everything.
They were quite close to invading Hokkaido. They didn’t have the “right” equipment to do it, but they had tons of war-hardened veterans. Hokkaido was less well defended than Manchuria. Landings with conventional ships would be lightly opposed.
Once the Russians had control of a port or two, Hokkaido’s gone. Then they work down the chain.
The Japanese would have to move forces north to counter this. Making opposition to the Allied landings even less significant.
As mentioned, the Japanese were starting to starve. The US interdiction and mining program was preventing outside food from coming in. Domestic production wasn’t enough and was falling rapidly.
One tipping issue in the decision to surrender was the concern that there would be a rebellion of starving people.
The US was continuing to be able to continue dropping A-bombs at a modest rate. There were things that could be done to control fire bombing damage. E.g., clearing fire lanes thru the cities. That doesn’t work against nukes.
This fear of being unable to do anything against the nukes fed into the social fears. People would want to flee the cities. That hurts military production. The clashes between hungry urbanites and farmers would have started.
The Japanese knew the war was lost for a long time. They kept hoping to win one final battle to arrange a semi-honorable end to the war. Recent battles, the bombs and the Russians said that wasn’t going to happen.
Here is a good analysis showing that the A-bomb wasn’t the main consideration.
You have to remember that these decisions weren’t made by the entire countries involved. They were made by the country’s leaders.
So why did the leaders in Germany and Japan keep fighting until 1945 when it was obvious their countries were going to eventually lose at least a year before then? Because they benefited from prolonging the war as long as possible.
People like Hitler and Tojo knew they weren’t going to be allowed to go off to an island retirement like Napoleon was. They were going to be executed. So, for them, the decision about surrendering in 1943 or 1944 came down to “Do I want to be executed this year or would I rather postpone it for another year or two?” And then they decided their country should keep fighting. The fact that a million or so of their citizens had to die for them to live that extra year didn’t matter to them.
I suppose that if Franco had given Hitler refuge, the Allies would have invaded Spain.
Might not have had to invade: blockade and sanctions, arrests of any governmental officials who leave the country, maybe sink their navy (did Spain have a navy in 1945?) and other high-pressure techniques, and most countries will give in.
South Africa reformed itself under far less pressure.
Hard to see why Franco would have done that. He wasn’t blinded by his ideology; he probably wanted Hitler to win the war but was always aware of the possibility Germany might lose. And as it became clearer Germany would lose, Franco was smart enough to shift away from Hitler and towards America and Britain.
Paywall site
More Soviet and anti-nuke propaganda. See, if the A Bomb didnt even end WWII, then it’s so worthless we should disarm, since nukes are not only evil but worthless. :rolleyes:
The Japanese statements didnt mention the Russians and did mention the Bomb.
Franco hated Hitler and Hitler executed Francos friend, Canaris. Adm Canaris the head of the Abwehr and head of the Anti-Hitler Movement, apparently told Franco that Hitler was a loon, a loser and not to be trusted.
Even that is dubious. Despite both regimes being fascist, Franco had no love for Hitler and their ideology had little in common, apart from them being both dictators (and opposed to “bolchevism”). And, as the future demonstrated, he could get along with western democracies just fine.
Like many dictators, of whatever ideology, Franco thought that democracies were weak. They might function okay in the short term when times were good but eventually there would be bad times and the democracy would collapse.
So for fascists like Franco and Hitler and Mussolini, the future was either going to be controlled by fascists or controlled by communists. Franco might not have particularly wanted Hitler to win WWII but he definitely didn’t want Stalin to win it.
Except Franco carefully ushered in a Democratic Republic in his later years, as opposed to a yet another dictator.
Leaving aside for a moment the question of what led the Japanese to surrender and going back to the OP:
While this is obviously hyperbole, it’s not accurate.
The armed forces would have wanted to fight to the last man, but the civilians would not have committed suicide to that degree. While there were a horrible number of Japanese civilians doing so in Saipan and Okinawa, they were pressured into that by the IJA.
Actually not. The US was growing war weary and wanted the war to end sooner than later. The US Army units in Europe were being demobilized and sent home, and there was tremendous pressure to finish the war in Japan.
Starving out the Japanese would not work as the military would not have cared how many civilians would have died.
Japanese war production was essentially finished by the summer of '45 because of a lack of raw material and oil. There was no real ongoing manufacturing of military products.
However, there were a large amounts of stockpiles of ammunition and other supplies, hidden in tunnels in the hills of the Kanto plains as well as in Kyushu. (There’s a nice park just west of Tokyo with some of these tunnels. I’ve got some pics somewhere of our family in front of the entrance to one of them.)
So again, leaving aside the question of surrender and assuming they didn’t, the following would have or may have happened:
Following the “double shock” of the atomic bombings and the Soviet entry into the war, the imperial military was preparing for implementing martial law. Had the Supreme Counsel rejected the idea of surrender, then this would have then actually been carried out.
The imperial military was attempting to get Hirohito to evacuate Tokyo and go to the “safety” of the Nagano bunker system. The Emperor had been resisting because it would have lead to him becoming a virtual prisoner of the military and further reduced his power. That could have happened. Certainly when the Allied were close to mounting an invasion of Kanto then he would have to acquiesce.
Could the Emperor have maintained independence? That’s an important question as he was the one who forced the military to accepting the surrender in August.
Without the power of the Emperor, the IJA would likely to have kept fighting all the way to Nagano and beyond. It indeed would have been a bloody battle to the very end.
On the US side, there was a power struggle on how to best proceed with the planned invasion. The Kyushu invasion plan had been approved, but Admirals King and Nimitz were increasingly weary of the planned invasion of Japan where the terrain would have made for extremely difficult fighting.
Gen. MacArthur was adamant about moving forward. Some of his critics suggest that this was because he was slated to become the overall commander and didn’t want to miss his chance at one of the most important campaigns of the war.
It certainly would have been bloody. The Japanese had over a million troops in and near Kyushu and over 10,000 planes which they were planning on using for kamikase attacks.
They had accurately determine which areas of that idea were slated for the invasion and were preparing the defenses there. (I lived in two of the three areas in the early 80s on my first trip).
The imperial military was counting on the cost of the Kyushu invasion to force the Americans to allow Japan to surrender at terms which they considered acceptable rather than unconditionally.
I’m no expert, but I wonder how much the ethnic differences in Saipan and Okinawa played into it?
IOW, was the mainland ethnic IJA quite happy to sacrifice those lesser ethnicities to save food for themselves, but would be disinterested in doing the same thing in the homeland later?
Franco remained the dictator throughout his lifetime. He just arranged things so democracy could be resumed after his death. That’s pretty tepid reform.
But it’s something. Franco presumably modified his views somewhat on the future direction of politics based on the difference between the world in the early forties and the world in the early seventies. Like I said, he wasn’t blinded by ideology.
I’ve always wondered if some pain and death might have been spared if, instead of demanding unconditional surrender, the Allies engaged in real negotiation.
One thing a lot of people never really understood about Americans is that “unconditional surrender” was usually quite merciful. Grant was merciful to the Confederates, and the U.S. was remarkably merciful toward Japan. If the Allies had, ahead of time, spelled out what they intended to do, would that have helped hasten the surrender?
Would any sane person sign an “unconditional” contract, unless someone was pointing a gun?
Probably successful negotiations would have been impossible, leading to a diplomatic stalemate. Probably Japan’s absolute minimum requirements would still have been too much for the Allies to have agreed to. But would it really have hurt to try?
I seem to recall that the Japanese were uncertain what would become of the Emperor under unconditional surrender.
The Allies tried that 20 years earlier. It was called the Treaty of Versailles and the upshot was Hitler gained power on a wave of revanchisme and started an even bloodier war that left roughly 50 million dead. Why should the Allies have expected any different from Japan, especially when that country’s political culture at the time was marked by an extreme form of militarism and ultra-nationalism and the nation’s leadership actively hoped to exactly achieve a negotiated peace in order to renew war at a more favourable circumstance? Also keep in mind, that the minimal Japanese terms included nonpunishment of war criminals, retention of key colonial possessions such as Korea and Taiwan, and no military occupation of the Home Islands, all of which would have put Japan in both a strategically favourable position and allow her to escape any real reprucussion for her imperialism and aggression.
No, Japan’s spirit and will needed to be utterly broken just as was the case with Nazi Germany so that she could never again disturb the peace of the world and be brought to an attitude of proper repentance. For all involved, it was tremendously fortunate this only required two atomic bombs rather then the wholesale destruction of Japan’s transportation infrastructure which would have meant millions of people in the Home Islands starving to death or dying from related causes such as malnutrition. And on the whole, Japan got off incredibly lightly from the Pacific War. Unlike Germany, she never had her sovereignty wholly terminated by the Allied powers nor did she ever have to give up an inch of core territories (indeed the Ryukyukus which was a post-Meiji conquest was restored to Japan in 1972). If anything, the imperial system should have been abolished or at least Emperor Hirohito should have been tried and hung for war crimes. The fact that perhaps Japan’s spirit and will was not wholly broken by an end to the supposed divine imperial system is why ultranationalism is much more common in Japan compared to the German Federal Republic.