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ORIGINAL: witpqs

Terminus mentioned that Japan would have ceased to exist as a nation. Consider the timing that was involved. The Soviets had already declared war, invaded mainland Asia areas, and invaded the northern Kuriles (either just before or just after surrender). If the US & allies had invaded, that would have included the Soviets one way or another (meaning either cooperatively or - more likely - separately). That's a big factor. Japan certainly would have ceased to exist, for quite some time at least.

As I read up on some basic information about the operation this started coming to mind. The Soviets were definitely in the picture at this point.

Operation Coronet (who names their operation after a paper plate [;)]) would have required some pull of troops from the European theater.

1. How would this have influenced immediate post-war relations between the U.S.S.R. and Europe?
2. With both the Soviet military and the Allies still at war with Japan this increases the chance for confrontation between the two, in particular if the Soviets move into what became South Korea.

    With complete air control, wouldn't we have at least tried to bomb them with conventional bombing and then regardless of whether they were attacking us with spears, their losses would have been in the millions?

That's what LeMay wanted...

ORIGINAL: hgilmer

    With complete air control, wouldn't we have at least tried to bomb them with conventional bombing and then regardless of whether they were attacking us with spears, their losses would have been in the millions?

What would you have bombed?

Yes, millions of of Japanese would have died. Does that balance if the Allies only lost a million lives? Or a half million?

At what point is victory too expensive?

ORIGINAL: m10bob

In that the Japanese were experimenting with chemical/biological agents in China, and had a philosophy to include sacrificial warfare, I have no doubt my brother and I would have never been born ...

After Germany surrendered, some of my father's Tank Destroyer brigade were doing amphibious landing practice in France in prep for the invasion of Japan. I suspect that a significant number of present posters wouldn't be here if that invasion went on as planned.

HoI2(D) has a (hypothetical) Olympic scenario, but has anyone in WitP not developed the A-bomb and instead invaded the Japanese home islands? If so, what happened?

Well just as a starter, Okinawa saw about 1100 kamakazies and it inflicted about 10% of the US Navys casulties during WWII and their primary target was the carriers. Okinawa has hundreds of miles of open sea in all directions to see incoming aircraft on radar.

For Olympic, the Japs were preparing 10,000 (yes, ten thousand) kamakazies. Their target was to be troop ships, and they would have been coming in over land where they would probably be on their targets before radar even saw them. Most were based in caves and tunnels so interdiction would have had minimal effect. To say it would have been bloody is an understatement. US figures estimated 500,000 American casulties alone, and thats before they knew how many kamakazies there were and what their target was.

My father was scheduled for wave 1 of Olympic. I for one am damn glad they dropped them bombs, or frankly I probably wouldnt be here. He likely would have died right there in or off Japan in 1945.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

That's what LeMay wanted...

That's what LeMay did w/an incendiary bombing campaign that burned up Japanese cities and factories as if they were made of paper, which they mostly were.

And in the process, our bombers accidentilly discovered the jet stream; LeMay then simply lowered their altitude.

Several American conventional bombings - I think all of them incendiary - exacted higher death tolls than either of the atomic bombs.
 
There's no question the Allies would have conquered Japan.  Eventually, when all aspects of waging war - the military, civilians, agriculture, hygiene, supply - reach a state sufficiently bad, the will to wage war suddenly and completely collapses.  Feinder's example of the end of the American Civil War is a fair example.  The Army of Northern Virginia might have escaped to the mountains and waged a guerilla war at some cost to the Union, but the South was defeated.  Everything had failed and the country collapsed.  That sort of collapse would have occurred in Japan too. 

I am also certain Mr Truman did the right thing, for the most people

I agree totally. In all the news items I have seen of the time the Allies always insist upon the ¨unconditional surrender¨ of Germany and Japan.

While Germany did surrender unconditionaly Japan did not. As the war went along and the dream of a greater Asia faded the protection of the Emporer became the cause for the Japanese.

The whole Japanese military was engrained with protecting and serving the Emporer. Surrending to the Allies unconditionally and serving up the Emporer to the Allies was unthinkable and they (as a people) would rather die.

Once the Allies dropped the unconditional surrender demand and guaranteed the status of the Emporer Japanese ¨honor¨ was satisfied enough and the war was quickly concluded. I think in the same week actually IIRC.

This surrender clause ended the war, not the atomic bombs.

If they hadn´t done this the Allies would have captured Japan eventually but the casualties would have been terrible.

It's merely an exorcise in rhetoric at this distant point - but, even without the Atom-Bomb Japan was slipping fast regardless.
Iwo Jima had horrific casualties, but remember - Okinawa saw the first large scale surrender of Japanese forces, it was the only battle of the war where the Japanese surrendered in the thousands instead of individually.

MacArthur and Nimitz among others claimed the atomic bomb was not necessary. I believe even if the allies had not relented to MacArthur's advice to leave the emperor intact, the Japanese would have had to surrender without the million allied casualties feared.

The Japanese war machine was being effectively starved, her industries and cities burned-out, and in a short while - no kamikaze's would have been flying - for lack of fuel if nothing else. With the USA, British Empire, and Soviet Union having nothing better to do than keep everyone employed in industry by destroying Japan conventionally, I can't really see how Japan could have kept the war going much longer anyway. This no-doubt is the reason for the post-war guilt felt over dropping the bomb. Starvation alone would have laid Japan low in a much shorter time than would have been necessary by fighting them all.

Honestly, I can't imagine that it could have gone on more than a few more months, no matter how suicidal some Japanese would have been willing to be...we are talking modern war - and that is all logistics no matter how fervent your army is.

Of all the misguided romantic notions about war in general, the idea that the Japanese would have/could have fought to the death with bamboo sticks and sharpened poles - is the most misguided of all. Like it or not, their time was done, the most that could have been achieved by a few Japanese die-hards was a guerrilla war of hopelessness that the average Japanese civilian would have quickly and wisely rejected.

And for all those who think of the casualties that may have been inflicted on the invading American Armies - I submit that everyone should reflect on the comparative casualties between the ETO and the PTO...there is no comparison. Eisenhower lost more men in a month in the 'Battle of the Bulge' than MacArthur lost in the entire Pacific War....as many Americans died and were wounded taking San Pietro in 5 days in Dec 1943 (just to batter their way into the Liri Valley...not to mention taking Monte Cassino) than Guadalcanal cost in 6 months, as many men died in two nights trying to cross the Rapido River in Italy in Jan 1944 as died taking Tarawa. In short, the price paid in the MTO-ETO was Always vastly higher than paid in the PTO...but it did not deter the Allies, and remember - that was the same war and the same price tag as willing to be paid. In short, the Germans were far more capable of inflicting casualties on the Allies than the Japanese were, yet that did not save the Germans.

my 2c.

B

ORIGINAL: Big B
And for all those who think of the casualties that may have been inflicted on the invading American Armies - I submit that everyone should reflect on the comparative casualties between the ETO and the PTO...there is no comparison. Eisenhower lost more men in a month in the 'Battle of the Bulge' than MacArthur lost in the entire Pacific War....as many Americans died and were wounded taking San Pietro in 5 days in Dec 1943 (just to batter their way into the Liri Valley...not to mention taking Monte Cassino) than Guadalcanal cost in 6 months, as many men died in two nights trying to cross the Rapido River in Italy in Jan 1944 as died taking Tarawa. In short, the price paid in the MTO-ETO was Always vastly higher than paid in the PTO...but it did not deter the Allies, and remember - that was the same war and the same price tag as willing to be paid. In short, the Germans were far more capable of inflicting casualties on the Allies than the Japanese were, yet that did not save the Germans.

my 2c.

B

You are comparing two different types of combat though. In combat in the ETO you had whole massed corps and armies in almost continuous contact with each other from 1943 (when the landings made on main land Italy) till May of 1945. The armies were constantly probing each other maneuvering and attacking each other head on almost constant basis from the minute the troops hit the beaches until the end of the war. The only respite for the troops was being withdrawn to a secure area with in a day's truck ride to refitting. They would have been replaced by fresher troops who only just landed or just finished their own refit. While in the Pacific even including the operations out of India back into Burma and the South East Asia only really saw regiments or divisions were committed piecemeal against each other for a short period of time. Then it was packaged up to ship back to a forward operating base, refit, and go out do it again on a new battle; all the while another division or regiment was being shipped out to attack another target to gain another forward operations base. Also remember that the war in the Pacific and CBI one saw that it was easier for the Allies to strike at spots where the Japanese were perceived to be weaker. While in Europe even though there was attempts out maneuver each other, it still happened that both sides struck each other almost head on. Even attempts (Anzio and Market Garden to name only two) by the allies to maneuver around the front of the German Army lead only to an easy switch of forces by the Germans to face that flank and turn the front.

Going back on topic I had to read a book titled "I Saw Tokyo Burning" by Robert Guillain while in college and still have the book. Mr. Guillain was a French reporter who was in Japan from the time of Pearl Harbor till the surrender. In his book he reported as he did to his newspaper Le Monde that he both heard and saw civilian men and women being trained into "People's Volunteer Corps". To quote him starting on page 228:

For the time being then, the fight-to-the-finish camp, backed by the public opinion it controlled, was very strong and read if necessary to fight the cabinet openly. Their orders came, as so often in the past, not from the army's official commanders, but from the military bureaus, the young colonels on the general staff and in the War Ministry. Other incendiary slogans came from the kamikaze training schools and army camps. The southern provinces of Japan, long a hotbed of militarism, prepared fanatically for invasion. Agitators from the nationalistic secret societies spread out over the country. Women did no escape conscription; they were finally ensnared by a series of measures-census, labor service, biannual mobilization in the factories they had long struggled to evade. “People’s volunteer crops” were organized everywhere for elementary training in handling weapons and guerrilla combat. Antique Carbines from the Russo-Japanese War, wooden rifles and bamboo spears were about the only arms they had. But they were fed on savage stories of Nazi Wehrwolf exploits before the German Surrender, and they were readied to do even better when the time fame from murder and vengeance against the invaders.

. The author goes on for about two more paragraphs describing how both the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force and Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force were making whole classes of fresh recruits into kamikaze pilots and other whole classes into escort pilots. Meanwhile the Japanese Navy were taking classes out of their boot camps and teaching them who to operate Kaiten mini-subs and motorboats and crash either into troops ships or into the waves of landing craft.

According to book, War Plan Orange:The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945 by Edward S. Miller, the last plan adopted by the General Board was basically from allied bases in Taiwan along with island bases in Philippines and Marianas the US Navy would be executing raids against the homelands all the while maintaining a blockade until the Japanese showed the white flag. This is the plan that according to other things that I have read and heard is the plan that Nimitz and King both wanted to hold to. Macarthur and if I remember right Marshall both wanted to abided by the concepts as taught with Clauswitez. That was force a major land battle and so utterly defeats the enemy’s ability to wage a land combat they would be forced to accept surrender. That would mean a landing on the Japanese home land.

Digging around on the internet here is a transcritpt from a class taught about the possibly invasion of Japan is an editor for the US Army's professional journal, Military Review, published by the US Army Commmand and General Staff College, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/giangrec.htm. He talks about the intelligence failures on the side of the Allies and how documents he found had mentioned the Japanese intelligence seemed to know about how the end game was going to be played with the invasion.

Just my thoughts on the subjects

...not to mention taking Monte Cassino) than Guadalcanal cost in 6 months, as many men died in two nights trying to cross the Rapido River in Italy in Jan 1944 as died taking Tarawa.

Well yeah but your considering apples and oranges. These are little Island battles. Tarawa had only a few 1,000 Japanese on it and at Quadalcanal they never did have even an entire Division on there.

When you getting later in the war where much larger forces were meeting each other the casulties get very large.

Securing Normandy costed 60ísh thousand casulties. Okinawa 70ísh thousand.

Invading Japan would have been a blood bath. The Japanese would have been as fantical as hell on the home islands. The Allies made a good move, for them and Japan by avoiding it.

ORIGINAL: m10bob

In that the Japanese were experimenting with chemical/biological agents in China, and had a philosophy to include sacrificial warfare, I have no doubt my brother and I would have never been born.
I am also certain Mr Truman did the right thing, for the most people, (us and them).

"Pops" was slated for Olympic. God Bless Harry Truman!

He is fifth from the left in the back row, the picture is from 1938.

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

ORIGINAL: hgilmer

With complete air control, wouldn't we have at least tried to bomb them with conventional bombing and then regardless of whether they were attacking us with spears, their losses would have been in the millions?

What would you have bombed?

Yes, millions of of Japanese would have died. Does that balance if the Allies only lost a million lives? Or a half million?

At what point is victory too expensive?

You misunderstand me. I am in complete agreement with what we did. I wouldn't have wanted to lose one more U.S. soldier's life to 20 million Japanese in a war we did not start. My argument is to the people that claim we were wrong to use the atom bomb. We killed a lot of Japanese but we would have killed a lot more if we did it conventionally and we would have also lost many of our own men.

And I would not have given one more American life to save them any more Japanese lives.

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

ORIGINAL: hgilmer
    With complete air control, wouldn't we have at least tried to bomb them with conventional bombing and then regardless of whether they were attacking us with spears, their losses would have been in the millions?

... Yes, millions of of Japanese would have died. Does that balance if the Allies only lost a million lives? Or a half million?

At what point is victory too expensive?

Victory too expensive? Consider the price of defeat; could Western democracies afford to lose a war w/Imperial Japan? w/Nazi Germany?

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

ORIGINAL: hgilmer
    With complete air control, wouldn't we have at least tried to bomb them with conventional bombing and then regardless of whether they were attacking us with spears, their losses would have been in the millions?

... Yes, millions of of Japanese would have died. Does that balance if the Allies only lost a million lives? Or a half million?

At what point is victory too expensive?

Victory too expensive? Consider the price of defeat; could Western democracies afford to lose a war w/Imperial Japan? w/Nazi Germany?

There are other possibilities besides defeat and victory in wars, of course.

And there IS such a thing as killing too many enemies. Remember the reaction in the UK after the Dresden raid.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

And there IS such a thing as killing too many enemies. Remember the reaction in the UK after the Dresden raid.

Oh yes. If you kill even one more than can be considered "absolutely necessary" your own "left wing, hand-wringing, liberals will spend the next sixty years crying and beating their breasts about it.., and the atrocity-commiting skunks on the other side will write the entire experiance out of their history books and pose to the world as the "victims" of the entire episode.

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish



... Yes, millions of of Japanese would have died. Does that balance if the Allies only lost a million lives? Or a half million?

At what point is victory too expensive?

Victory too expensive? Consider the price of defeat; could Western democracies afford to lose a war w/Imperial Japan? w/Nazi Germany?

There are other possibilities besides defeat and victory in wars, of course.

Ironically, WW II in Europe didn't officially end (on paper) till Germany was reunified back in the late 1980s.

But what possibilities did you have in mind? A separate peace w/IJ? Not after PH!

Remember the reaction in the UK after the Dresden raid.

What was the reaction in the UK after Dresden? You mean the British civilians "had issue" with civilian losses at Dresden? During WW2? Did they even really know the scope of the situation -during- WW2? I know the Germans did try to propagandize the situation, but I figure that the Allies would counter and down-play the losses, and the truth (without accurate post-war sources) would lie somewhere in the middle (with leanings towards your own country's reporting).

Serious question tho - what was the domestic (Allied) reaction to Dresden during WW2?

-F-