In the wake of the typhoon, the American bombardment of Japan, and southern Kyushu in particular, becomes even more intense. An abortive Japanese attempt to capitalize on the destruction of the typhoon by sending Kamikaze squadrons to attack Okinawa is beaten back with heavy losses on the Japanese side. The Japanese pilots are barely capable of flying their aircraft, let alone fighting them. A leaflet campaign is begun against Japan as political pressure to end the war mounts in the United States. The leaflets include the notes from and to the Japanese government prior to the coup, agreeing to a surrender. The leaflet campaign does have some success in isolated portions of the former Japanese empire. Bypassed, starving, and alone, many Japanese island garrisons ignored in the island-hopping campaign begin to surrender. The emaciated survivors are transported to the United States.
On December 24, Christmas Eve Day, American papers report the surrender of Japanese-held Formosa. An intensive air and submarine campaign, coupled with overtures to the Japanese commander of the island, begun after the typhoon of October 26, has borne fruit. Buried on page 2 is the fact that Soviet troops have captured Japanese-held Pusan, at the tip of the Korean peninsula. On January 1, the United States opens the bombardment campaign of southern Kyushu. Seven nuclear weapons are detonated, (two more having been manufactured in the month since the original invasion date) killing an estimated 250,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians. Civilian casualties are higher, as there are more of them, and the troops tended to be dug in. Also on January 1, landings were made on the offshore islands of Tanegashima, Yakushima, and the Koshiki Retto.
The ferocity of the atomic bombing shocks every Japanese not a die-hard hawk to the core. Massive rebellions erupt on all the Japanese Home Islands. The Japanese Army, leaderless after the death of Gen. Anami on Jan. 4 in a rebel attack, is powerless to stop many of these widespread rebellions. Their transportation destroyed, hampered at every turn by American airpower, and decimated by disease, desertion, and despiration, the Japanese Army nears collapse. In scattered actions and separate movements, individual Japanese units, ranging in strength from company to division level, begin broadcasting their surrender. Reluctant to accept a surrender without an official leader, American forces make a tentative landing at the site of one of the largest groups wanting surrender, on the island of Shikoku.
Originally intended as a diversion to the main landing on the island of Kyushu, the Shikoku landing is expanded, as many of the offers of surrender prove genuine. Some die-hards broadcast false surrenders in an effort to kill American soldiers, but these are few and far between. The emaciated Japanese still alive on Shikoku largely seem willing to give up peacefully. The island, isolated by American airpower and naval units, is overrun in three weeks.
On January 15, the anticlimactic invasion of southern Kyushu takes place. Though more Japanese fight than on Shikoku, their numbers are proportionally less, due to the massive nuclear bombardment of the island. The American forces take fewer than 10,000 casualties in their occupation of southern Kyushu. They are held up from occupying the whole island, not by Japanese resistance, but by the total destruction of the transportation infrastructure.
The piecemeal surrenders continue, and American forces begin to redeploy as quickly as possible for an invasion of Honshu. On January 28, the first American division hits the shore near Tokyo Bay. Originally intended as a reserve division for the Olympic landings, it was diverted northward as the collapse of Japan became apparent. The division rapidly expands its beachead, and reinforcements, in the form of two more divisions, land. The ashy ruins of Tokyo are taken on February 1. Though there is no organized resistance, a few Japanese in every town still fight on. American soldiers must spread throughout the country, a task made nearly impossible by the complete destruction of the Japanese road and rail system. It is actually quicker for a unit to sail from Tokyo all the way around Japan, to land on the western coast, than it is to drive across the country.
Stalin, seeing an opportunity, was eager to make a landing on Hokkaido, but lacked the logistics and manpower to do so. On March 4, Soviet forces finally set foot on Hokkaido, rapidly overrunning an island almost devoid of Japanese troops and in far better shape than the heavily-bombed Honshu. By April 27, the entire island is under Soviet control. Stalin begins moving industrial equipment from Hokkaido to the Soviet Union, as he did in Germany. Without a concrete plan for the division of Japan, Stalin is eager to claim as much as he can, and Soviet forces move into Honshu on May 10.
By July 4, Harry Truman is able to announce the end of major combat operations. There is no V-J Day, however, as 50,000 American servicemen will remain in Japan for the forceeable future on occupation duty, hunting down pockets of diehard resistance. The United States and the Soviet Union come to terms in an occupation agreement for Japan. Eventually, the People's Republic of Hokkaido will come to be mentioned in the same breath as Romania, and the Berlin Blockade countered with one of Tokyo.
But that's in the future. The death toll in this Japan is astronomical. Nearly 2 million Japanese have been killed in American air raids and in the invasion (OTL 500,000 estimated). 10 million more have died of starvation. An aid plan was set into place from the United States, but the continued resistance of the Japanese Army over OTL didn't allow food to arrive before the lack of the spring rice harvest really hurt. Japan isn't going to be economic powerhouse of the 1980s. Divided in the Cold War, occupied by Western forces, and decimated by starvation, it's going to be a long time recovering.
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