Would Japan surrender conditionally without an invasion or atomic bombs?

[Rolf]

I lived in Sasebo from '67-'70. Dear old Dad was in the U.S. Navy. He was the Chief of the dry docks. Anyhow the Japanese invented the Ronco-Revisionator along time ago. The Japanese are a very nice people. We had a maid Aiko who helped us live in town off base. I am talking old style Japanese house rice paper inner walls glass out walls, tatami mat floors, extremely cold in the winter. She would tell us stories about the day of the Nagaski bombing she was outside of the city when the bomb hit. What I remember most were the have and have nots. Most labor was manual, very little mechanization, granted this was 22 years after the end of the war. When the dry docks were expanded lots of explosives and then I remember seeing mostly people with straw baskets carrying the fill away to small 3 wheeled trucks. What I remember most about the docks is once they had blasted the far end far enough, without finishing the dock they drydocked a freighter for repairs and continued digging the docks once the water was pumped out. I used to spend the night with my dad on the docks when he had Duty. A long time ago, when no one thought anything was wrong that a kid got to play with a sand blaster.

Having visited the Museum in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I remember the angry faces looking at us, and the peace memorial having a paper slip of every person killed in the bombing. In the museum lots of pictures of burned faces and bodies, melted artifacts, pictures of shadows burned onto walls. I recall it was very anti-American experience my Mom was the hardcore mother. She would flat out tells this is why certain things happened.

I was between 7 and 10 while living in Japan. Japan was a great place I have fond memories. Like US Marines riding on our school bus every time a US carrier came into Port. The riots were great as a stupid kid. We got to ride on a bus with the windows covered in screens, our School had screens on the windows to prevent rocks from hitting the glass. Only 1 time in three years did they ever stop our bus and the 2 Marines at the front of the bus with fixed bayonets convinced them not to try. Then the Japanese riot police showed up, and a massive melee started. It was like watching Japanese TV at night only better. Only once did they ever get close to the school which used to be right besides the main gate. Marines at the gate, riot police busting heads just off base. What a way to go to school. Our teacher gave up keeping us from the windows.

Excuse me for rambling.. I was more afraid of moving back to the US than living in Japan. 67-70. Vietnam going full bore, RFK killed, MLK killed, Manson murders, McDonald Murders. This was all on Japanese TV, and the Stars and Stripes newspaper. Goldwater was going to cause a Nuclear War. In Japan we only had the occasional Yankee go home riots. The way Japanese TV played up the U.S. we were living in the wild west and lawless.

 

[LeX]

Random responses to various comments.

In the mid 80s we had a kid that moved yo the US with his family from Japan, He FLUNKED a history quiz. It was about WW2 and he got the following Wrong. Who Japan was Allied against. That Japan had invaded and was fighting China, that Japan , That Japan invaded south East Asia. And he was 100% convinced that Japan was attacked and was fighting a defensive war to protect Asia and Japan from the Europeans. And he had NO concept about PH at all and was 10000% convinced that Japan declared war before any fighting started.
It was amazing. The teachers showed him some of the photos after the quiz and he was completely shocked. Other Japanese actions such as the Death march and the prisoner camps was also huge surprises. (He joined the class the day of the quiz, The teacher gave it to him not to grade b any t see what he new and how much he had to catch up to the rest of the class. He spoke very good English. But he was pulled from pub school at the end of the semester and i believe sent to a private school. My area was getting a fair amount of Japanese in it working for various Japanese companies at the time and iirc they had a small private school that more or less taught the Japanese curriculum. I always wondered if his Father didn’t want him to learn how bad Japan was. His father was old enough that he may well have fought in the war.

I know several people that worked/lived in Japan in the 80s,90s, and 00s and frm what they say Japan has done a good job at pretending they did nothing wrong in WW2

East Asian societies have for better or for worse evolved to focus much more on shame than guilt. For the Japanese establishment, they would rather craft a narrative of the war that reduces their crimes to "mistakes were made" and describes the war aims as "the basic motivations were good" than have the whole nation live with the fact that they spent 20-30 years killing and looting their way across Asia without even a coherent plan other than "let's attack bigger country x to solve the problems created by our invasion of smaller country y."

That and China was on the opposite side of the Cold War, and Southeast Asia was dirt poor so who cares about those commies and islanders, right?

And while I am sure Russias attack-helped to convince them, I find it funny that people put more emp on Japan loosing a mainland Territory then getting its cities and the factories they held atomized. Japan had been loozing territories it occupied for years by that point. And the only reason the US and Gzb had not gone after the territory the USSR invaded was because it was out of the way, and didn’t really help Japan any. But suddenly the lose of this frankly irrelevant territory is what drove Japan to surrender and the Firebombings and all the island hoping and the threat of invasion to the Main Islands and the Atom Bombs were all secondary to the lose of this territory..
Sure, you just keep thinking that.

Like someone else mentioned above, the IJA cared more about the mainland territories because Asia and Manchuria in particular was their pride and joy, with them having requisitioned a large portion of Japan's resources to develop Manchukuo. The Japanese government and presumably the emperor with whatever personal influence he had, if any, would have clearly cared more about the home islands.

Logically I never thought it made sense that the authorities would not be terrified witnessing what is basically a divine superpower erase a city from the face of the earth. The guys in charge of Japan were not lacking in masculinity and every man or boy can appreciate a giant explosion, especially when used on themselves. I was surprised to learn that there was a serious effort in the regime to continue the war even after that.

 

[TDM]

Random responses to various comments.

In the mid 80s we had a kid that moved yo the US with his family from Japan, He FLUNKED a history quiz. It was about WW2 and he got the following Wrong. Who Japan was Allied against. That Japan had invaded and was fighting China, that Japan , That Japan invaded south East Asia. And he was 100% convinced that Japan was attacked and was fighting a defensive war to protect Asia and Japan from the Europeans. And he had NO concept about PH at all and was 10000% convinced that Japan declared war before any fighting started.
It was amazing. The teachers showed him some of the photos after the quiz and he was completely shocked. Other Japanese actions such as the Death march and the prisoner camps was also huge surprises. (He joined the class the day of the quiz, The teacher gave it to him not to grade b any t see what he new and how much he had to catch up to the rest of the class. He spoke very good English. But he was pulled from pub school at the end of the semester and i believe sent to a private school. My area was getting a fair amount of Japanese in it working for various Japanese companies at the time and iirc they had a small private school that more or less taught the Japanese curriculum. I always wondered if his Father didn’t want him to learn how bad Japan was. His father was old enough that he may well have fought in the war.

I know several people that worked/lived in Japan in the 80s,90s, and 00s and frm what they say Japan has done a good job at pretending they did nothing wrong in WW2

Oddly enough every time I have been to the USAF museum there has been Japanese tourists taking photos of Bockscar. And I have been there about 10 times. Always seamed odd to me.

I dont get the downplaying of what the Emperor said. The guy I literally referred to the Atom Bombs but know we sit here almost 80 years after the fact and say. ”He really didn’t mean it when he said the A-Bombs were part of the reason they surrendered. They really surrendered because of The USSRs week long war not because the US and GB and Australia and co. Had been kicking Japans ass for years and now could destroy one city with one bomb,.. ”
It is amazing how we can revise this..

what the heck proof do you need? And while I am sure Russias attack-helped to convince them, I find it funny that people put more emp on Japan loosing a mainland Territory then getting its cities and the factories they held atomized. Japan had been loozing territories it occupied for years by that point. And the only reason the US and Gzb had not gone after the territory the USSR invaded was because it was out of the way, and didn’t really help Japan any. But suddenly the lose of this frankly irrelevant territory is what drove Japan to surrender and the Firebombings and all the island hoping and the threat of invasion to the Main Islands and the Atom Bombs were all secondary to the lose of this territory..
Sure, you just keep thinking that.

Sorry if you referring to my post, it not a downplaying it's recognition that different messages were given to different groups because these different groups cared more about different things.

so as per my email

The Emperor most definitely talked about the Atomic bombing and not the Red army so much when addressing the nation (i.e. the civilian population), but when the IJA basically ignored his first proclamation, he made a second proclamation directly to them that talked about the Red army


Because

The civilian population didn't really care that much about the Red army smashing through Manchuria (especially not when there houses at home were on fire)

But the IJA didn't care that much about cities burning down, because their attitude was the civilians had had it easy and it was now their time to endure hardship
So like I said it not one or the other it's both, but importantly just because it's both doesn't mean either's importance is reduced*.

No we could discuss what would have happened if the IJA and continued to ignore the emperor (and there was an attempted coup even at that late stage)


*if we really want we could try and assign some of comparative importance value for both, but I think if we do that in reality we'd just end up assigning that importance value to each group in regards to ther importance for accepting the surrender, rather than the things themselves.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Logically I never thought it made sense that the authorities would not be terrified witnessing what is basically a divine superpower erase a city from the face of the earth. The guys in charge of Japan were not lacking in masculinity and every man or boy can appreciate a giant explosion, especially when used on themselves. I was surprised to learn that there was a serious effort in the regime to continue the war even after that.

The true horror of the atomic bombings, including the nature of radiation sickness, actually did not sink in until somewhat after the surrender. Comms with Hiroshima and Nagasaki being destroyed was partially to blame; the two devastated cities were cut off from the outside world for some days. To IGHQ at the time, it was just the 10 March Meetinghouse raid all over again, nothing particularly new.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

What about the 400,000 civilians dying in Japanese occupied territory per month in summer of 1945? Or the 110,000 allied pows set for execution on sept 1 1945?

Indeed. Along with that is Japan still had functional armies across China, Indo China, Burma, Maylasia, Indonesia, & other locations. While the IJN was nearly destroyed and these armies were semi isolated they also had ammunition reserves, local food sources, fuel. Those in China/Manchuria were near self sufficient. Japan controlled enough of Chinas industry their armies there were capable of fighting on for several years. One million Japanese children dying in a blockade is tragic, but that was just part of the larger tragedy on near one million deaths monthly across Asia and the Pacific.

How to stop that as swiftly as possible?

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

The Emperor most definitely talked about the Atomic bombing and not the Red army so much when addressing the nation (i.e. the civilian population), but when the IJA basically ignored his first proclamation, he made a second proclamation directly to them that talked about the Red army.

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.

 

[Ambusher11]

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.

Which makes me wonder, why did they expect the USSR to be supporting them in the first place? Did they not think that the USSR wanted to destroy them in 1945 (which they indeed wanted to do, they viewed Imperial Japan as a threat too, at times probably just as much as Nazi Germany)?

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Which makes me wonder, why did they expect the USSR to be supporting them in the first place? Did they not think that the USSR wanted to destroy them in 1945 (which they indeed wanted to do, they viewed Imperial Japan as a threat too, at times probably just as much as Nazi Germany)?

Im not 100% understanding this either. Drawing from Costellos 'The Pacific War', & a few other books it seems to be this:

1. The USSR had not yet taken hostile actions vs Japan.

2. The USSR was fundamentally hostile to the US and Britain.

3. The USSR had strong interests in a ally for a future political, economic, or military confrontation with the Anglo/US alliance.

4. Poor understanding of the fundamental policy and motivations of the USSR

In #2 they did anticipate the Cold War, sort of, and they anticipated Communist Chinas role with its several mutual interests with the USSR. It still looks unrealistic to many people these days, but we are looking at tit from the perspective of the Japanese leaders from January - July 1945 #3 is much the same. #4 is from the poor intelligence Japan had in or of the USSR. Their collection network was undersized, compromised by the Soviet state security agencies, and was collecting mostly useless items, or disinformation. That the Red Army attack was a surprise is indicative. Bottom line is the idea of the USSR as a ally or a friend was as unrealistic as anything else the Japanese leaders were thinking that spring and summer. They seem to have been very badly informed, and had fundamental misunderstandings of everyone else's thinking.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Random responses to various comments.

In the mid 80s we had a kid that moved yo the US with his family from Japan, He FLUNKED a history quiz. It was about WW2 and he got the following Wrong. Who Japan was Allied against. That Japan had invaded and was fighting China, that Japan , That Japan invaded south East Asia. And he was 100% convinced that Japan was attacked and was fighting a defensive war to protect Asia and Japan from the Europeans. And he had NO concept about PH at all and was 10000% convinced that Japan declared war before any fighting started.
It was amazing. The teachers showed him some of the photos after the quiz and he was completely shocked. Other Japanese actions such as the Death march and the prisoner camps was also huge surprises. (He joined the class the day of the quiz, The teacher gave it to him not to grade b any t see what he new and how much he had to catch up to the rest of the class. He spoke very good English. But he was pulled from pub school at the end of the semester and i believe sent to a private school. My area was getting a fair amount of Japanese in it working for various Japanese companies at the time and iirc they had a small private school that more or less taught the Japanese curriculum. I always wondered if his Father didn’t want him to learn how bad Japan was. His father was old enough that he may well have fought in the war.

A senior figure in the Japanese education ministry once lamented: "To kids of today, history began when Gundam began. They think the Americans were our allies during WW2 and Martians were the enemy."

 

[Sekhmet_D]

This friendship and support from the USSR for Japan was one of the foundation pillars of the strategy for continuing the war.

Friendship and support? After Khalkhin Gol? Am I reading this correctly? If the Japanese had this mentality, why did they see the need to station several hundred thousand troops at the border with Russia and why did they consider a Hokushin strategy at one point?

 

[Bellacinos]

Friendship and support? After Khalkhin Gol? Am I reading this correctly? If the Japanese had this mentality, why did they see the need to station several hundred thousand troops at the border with Russia and why did they consider a Hokushin strategy at one point?

I also believe Richard B Frank mentions in his book “Downfall” a minor but nonetheless factor in Japan’s capitulation was fear of a communist uprising if things got unbearable in Japan and with the Red Army wrecking havoc.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Friendship and support? After Khalkhin Gol? Am I reading this correctly? If the Japanese had this mentality, why did they see the need to station several hundred thousand troops at the border with Russia and why did they consider a Hokushin strategy at one point?

Yes its illogical to US, but about every decision Japans leaders made is illogical to our PoV as non Japanese & 80 years distant in the 21st Century. I lived in Japan for two years, tried to learn something about th Japanese, and have been studying the question of the Japanese leaders thinking over four decades. All I can say is their world view, and motivations or influences were very different from ours. As a wild guess one motivation to seek the USSR as a friend was desperation?

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

I also believe Richard B Frank mentions in his book “Downfall” a minor but nonetheless factor in Japan’s capitulation was fear of a communist uprising if things got unbearable in Japan and with the Red Army wrecking havoc.

Considering how active the Communists were in the 1950s it was not a foundation less fear.

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

No they didn't. They might have surrendered due to the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, which never had that name - it doesn't fit the way the Soviet Union named operations at all.

It's not at all clear, AIUI, what the tipping point was, or if there even was one. The start of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the Nakasaki bombing occurred on the same day, and were discussed at the same cabinet meeting. Hirohito mentioned the atomic bomb specifically in his surrender broadcast, but that doesn't necessarily prove anything.

For what it's worth, I think that the near-simultenaity of the two was a key consideration. The atomic bomb alone might not have been enough. The Soviet Union entering the war might not have been enough. Even both, but with a substantial (weeks-to-months) time between them might not have been enough. And note that even with both occurring, there was an attempted coup in favour of continuing to fight!

Allied ground forces landing in Japan would also be another thing that would weigh heavily in favour of surrender, IMO - but again, not necessarily enough on its own. As far as I know, there has never been a successful invasion of Japan, and nobody has seriously tried since the Mongols in the thirteenth century. The US doing so would probably be a major shock to Japanese confidence; I suspect a Soviet invasion wouldn't have been able to achieve a foothold, so wouldn't have the same effect. Sufficient suffering of the population probably wouldn't be enough to force surrender on its own, given the indifference that the government seemed to show, but if inflicted long enough, the ability to sustain war would disappear.

At that point, the line between 'continued blockade' and 'Japanese genocide' is paper-thin.

IIRC the Japanese were still hoping the USSR would help find a diplomatic solution - yup, very joined-up thinking there - so the Russian declaration of war snatched the last crazy hope from their hands

 

[Hawkeye]

Friendship and support? After Khalkhin Gol? Am I reading this correctly? If the Japanese had this mentality, why did they see the need to station several hundred thousand troops at the border with Russia and why did they consider a Hokushin strategy at one point?

I think friendship might have been the wrong word to use. Nations don't have friends, they have interests. The USSR acting as a neutral arbiter was the best chance Japanese leadership had at salvaging something at peace negotiations, or at least in their minds.

They were probably encouraged by secret correspondence with Stalin that signal his interest. But in reality Stalin was only leading them on and had no intention of going along with their plan. He was only buying time to position Soviet troops.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Friendship and support? After Khalkhin Gol?

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.

why did they see the need to station several hundred thousand troops at the border with Russia

They actually were pulling a lot of units out of the Manchuria garrison for use in China, the Pacific, and the defence of the home isles. As for the scale of the forces still in Manchuria in August 1945 it's worth remembering that A) Manchuria is really really big, had active partisans, and a lot of manpower was needed just for basic security, and B) the Kwantung Army had considerable training, command, and logistical infrastructure there to support operations in China. So no, there weren't "several hundred thousand troops at the border with Russia", Most IJA personnel there were either dispersed performing rear area security or were support personnel.

and why did they consider a Hokushin strategy at one point?

Hokushin-ron hadn't really been relevant for nearly a decade by that point? Its primary advocates had been the faction that lost to Tojo's faction.

 

[Raferty]

I don't think more strategic bombing would do it. Quite frankly, by June, LeMay was running out of cities to burn. If you can't blockade Japan, then there's no point in trying to starve it by hitting the rail network.

I do think a Japanese surrender would be possible if Korea was overrun and the Chinese front collapsed, because of perhaps an anti-hardliner coup succeeding

But I think more likely than not, you'd get Operation Downfall instead

 

[Ozpin]

To put it simply, they refuse to acknowledge or in the worst cases they are proud of their WW2 actions.

Japan's hardliners were too fanatical and it would have been bloodiest end to a war ever seen.

 

[Nivek]

No

 

[ValaisBlacknose]

I could kinda see a "conditional" surrender in private but unconditional in public as long as Japan only asked for extremely simple and easy things.

Stuff like "keep the Monarchy around even if only cerimonial" and "don't destroy our cultural icons and museums and temples".

Thing is that these are all things that could be negotiated (and in fact were negotiated) during the peace enforcement. The reason why unconditional surrender was asked for was because no one wanted to have a rematch in 20 years and also loads of high ups on the Axis when given the chance to ask massively overplayed their hand and came off as delusionaly arrogant like Germany wanting status quo ante bellum in 1944 on the west.