FDR lives through all of 1945, test-explodes atomic bomb off Japanese coast.

[GeographyDude]

Maybe the U.S. tweaks the terms of surrender. For example, making an informal agreement not to execute the Emperor, which we didn't do anyway.

Yes, we avoid bombing the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In my mind, here's the challenge: The occupation of Japan already went extremely well. Think pretty far out on the bell curve. So, how can you have a major change and still achieve this level of success or more? Find me a way.

 

[Draconis]

Better call Skippy.

 

[GeographyDude]

In a sense, the occupation and rebuilding of Japan is already wild blue, Kumbaya stuff.

Arguably, we eventually even became friends. No realistic chance of future war. Japan even went the step of forswearing ever having an army. And Japan became a modern democracy with an advanced economy, even given the slower growth from the mid-1990s forwards.

Hard to imagine things going better, but let’s think of a way or two it might.

 

[marathag]

Hard to imagine things going better, but let’s think of a way or two it might.

Really owning up to the bad stuff they had been up to since 1932 would be a good start. Then trying to make up for it.
They put it in a box, and tried to forget about it.

No-one let the Germans do that with what the Nazis had done. the Germans owned up to it.

Forgoing an Army in place of a SDF was nice and all, but not the same as trying to repair the millions of lives that they shattered from India to Mongolia to the Pacific Atolls

 

[Zheng He]

I’ve never understood the logic of this argument. Let’s look at what actually happened OTL.

6 August Hiroshima is bombed and the Japanese cabinet votes 4-2 to stay in the war.

8 August Soviet Union joins the war.

9 August Nagasaki is bombed and the cabinet dead locks at 3-3 so the Emperor steps in to make the decision and then there is an attempted coup.

Given that it took two cities getting nuked plus the Soviet’s joining the war to get the Japanese to decide to surrender, how is a scenario that involves doing less than was done OTL going to get them to give up?

 

[GeographyDude]

Really owning up to the bad stuff they had been up to since 1932 would be a good start. Then trying to make up for it.
They put it in a box, and tried to forget about it.

I’ll tell you. Japan might might be data point, that instead of making amends, sometimes it’s just better to move forward.

 

[Onkel Willie]

I’ll tell you. Japan might might be data point, that instead of making amends, sometimes it’s just better to move forward.

I disagree. Japan should've been forced to acknowledge its crimes like Germany instead of being allowed to gloss over them. It's a glaring injustice. As to the subject at hand, I agree with @Zheng He.

 

[GeographyDude]

9 August Nagasaki is bombed and the cabinet dead locks at 3-3 so the Emperor steps in to make the decision and then there is an attempted coup.

Yes, I find that pretty amazing, too. That it took the Emperor to cast the deciding vote in favor of sanity. But I suspect you’re agree that we humans are simply too complicated for there to be any clear hierarchy that reality is always scarier than imagination.

When Hiroshima was bombed on Aug. 6, 1945, there were 40,000 human beings immediately killed, plus about 100,000 who died of radiation poisoning within about a week (and approximately an equal number who died of cancer in the coming years). Really bad, no question about it.

I’ll just say that sometimes imagination is worse.

 

[GeographyDude]

Before they test-explode a bomb off the coast, if the U.S. had been negotiating, indirectly, through an intermediary, with a high-ranking Japanese officer, “preliminary” terms of surrender.

Now, you’re not manipulating a coup. More, you’re the other side a chance to make a move (perhaps even a mistake) that’s in your favor.

Although in this case, especially from the Japanese perspective, it wouldn’t be a mistake.

 

[Zheng He]

Yes, I find that pretty amazing, too. That it took the Emperor to cast the deciding vote in favor of sanity. But I suspect you’re agree that we humans are simply too complicated for there to be any clear hierarchy that reality is always scarier than imagination.

When Hiroshima was bombed on Aug. 6, 1945, there were 40,000 human beings immediately killed, plus about 100,000 who died of radiation poisoning within about a week (and approximately an equal number who died of cancer in the coming years). Really bad, no question about it.

I’ll just say that sometimes imagination is worse.

In addition to what I posted, any atomic demonstration by the US will probably get written off as some sort Hollywood stunt, you know, one of the few things Americans are actually good at.

 

[Johnrankins]

I’ve never understood the logic of this argument. Let’s look at what actually happened OTL.

6 August Hiroshima is bombed and the Japanese cabinet votes 4-2 to stay in the war.

8 August Soviet Union joins the war.

9 August Nagasaki is bombed and the cabinet dead locks at 3-3 so the Emperor steps in to make the decision and then there is an attempted coup.

Given that it took two cities getting nuked plus the Soviet’s joining the war to get the Japanese to decide to surrender, how is a scenario that involves doing less than was done OTL going to get them to give up?

Agreed, it just means three bombs instead of just two assuming you somehow get FDR to actually do that. My guess is he would have made the same decision as Truman. It may or may not be a little sooner or later or maybe a different city due to butterflies but I doubt it would have changed much. FDR already proved he could be ruthless in war.

 

[trurle]

Maybe the U.S. tweaks the terms of surrender. For example, making an informal agreement not to execute the Emperor, which we didn't do anyway.

Yes, we avoid bombing the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In my mind, here's the challenge: The occupation of Japan already went extremely well. Think pretty far out on the bell curve. So, how can you have a major change and still achieve this level of success or more? Find me a way.

1) Bombing of Hirosima and Nagasaki was unnecessary anyway. The ~90% of motivation behind Emperor`s decision to surrender come from rapid defeat of IJA in Manchuria, not from nuclear bombing.
2) Stockpile more chocolate. Animosity toward US from adults have lingered for many years, but children reacted to changed situation very rapidly.
3) Allocate more resources for fast and orderly evacuation of Japanese garrisons and colonists in China. IOTL, these were evacuated mostly with residual resources of Japanese government, and took time until late 1946. Faster return equals more workforce in Japan.
4) Treaty on food security (food aid in case of famine) written as early as possible. IOTL, hundreds thousands of Japanese emigrated in first post-war decade, encouraged by Japanese government fearing the large-scale famine due shrinking farmland and influx of refugees.

 

[marathag]

The ~90% of motivation behind Emperor`s decision to surrender come from rapid defeat of IJA in Manchuria, not from nuclear bombing.

so why didn't Hirohito's surrender message mention that, beyond things not going to Japan's advantage, when the bombs were explicitly mentioned?

 

[trurle]

so why didn't Hirohito's surrender message mention that, beyond things not going to Japan's advantage, when the bombs were explicitly mentioned?

You should understand the surrender speech of Hirohito was a declaration of fait accompli, not an argument for the debate. It neither intends nor actually outlines the motive forces.
The motivation for surrender in speech is just 4 phrases, two of which are concerning nuclear bombing (likely because nuclear bombing was considered "hot topic" among populace).

 

[Minchandre]

From where comes this idea that FDR wouldn't order the atomic bombing? He's the one who ordered the Manhattan Project, and it's not like Truman was known for being hard-core and bloodthirsty.

Though it became very common to question it even relatively soon after the war, there was almost no one speaking against the atomic bombings at the time (aside from some of the Manhattan Project scientists). Basically the only group to condemn the bombings in their immediate aftermath was the Vatican. Now, maybe Stettinus would have carried a letter to FDR where Byrnes didn't carry one to Truman, but the will to use the bomb was too strong at the time.

And let's not forget that strategic bombing raids were being conducted more or less freely at this point (and throughout much of the war). The firebombing of Tokyo a few months earlier did more damage than either Nagasaki or Hiroshima. The raids on Dresden were about half as damaging, both in terms of deaths and area destroyed. These attacks would face criticism after the war (like the nuclear bombings), but did not face much opposition at the time [1]. The attack on Hamburg did similar damage, and no one even talks about it.

I'm not one to say "judge people by the moral standard of their own time", but we definitely need to judge possible decisions in the context in which they were made. And the circumstances in mid-late 1945 overwhelmingly pointed towards nuclear bombings.

[1] There actually was some objection to the firebombing of Dresden, but Churchill distributed a letter to his various general officers telling them that they were a bunch of hypocrites who only cared because Dresden was known as a center of culture and art, and reminding them that none of them had blinked an eye at the previous 3 years of happily bombing civilians.

 

[BellaGerant]

I disagree. Japan should've been forced to acknowledge its crimes like Germany instead of being allowed to gloss over them. It's a glaring injustice. As to the subject at hand, I agree with @Zheng He.

And, in a pragmatic sense, it would at least reduce the continuing resentment from most of the rest of East Asia, which would in turn reduce the influence of anti-Japanese sentiment in politics in the Koreas and China. Avoiding that and smoothing over relations means a lower chance of economic chaos born purely from nationalistic xenophobia and resentment (the current Korea-Japan economic situation would be Chat material but is relevant to the topic) and more potential cooperation in large-scale projects, like the Korea-Japan Undersea Tunnel, that could bolster the whole East Asian economic region.

Even if it's not EU level, more cooperation would likely have been and continue to be highly beneficial for all parties involved, including Japan, and that has not been possible with the animosity the mainland East Asian nations feel towards Japan. Whether that animosity is justified is its own topic (and probably belongs in Chat, with how heated it can get) but it's not like apologising as Germany did would worsen relations.

 

[stevej713]

1) Bombing of Hirosima and Nagasaki was unnecessary anyway. The ~90% of motivation behind Emperor`s decision to surrender come from rapid defeat of IJA in Manchuria, not from nuclear bombing.

This gets asserted a lot but I have yet to see any convincing evidence. The Red Army did not and could not pose a threat to the Japanese home islands, while the US was an immediate threat and was causing civilian deaths to climb with each passing day.

From everything I've read, the Japanese government's biggest fear was being forced into an unconditional surrender to the US, which they felt would have meant that the leadership would be hanged and Japan would return to being a medieval backwater (which wasn't an insane thought since Japan is utterly bereft of all the resources needed to make a modern economy).

This fear of the US led the Japanese to vainly hope that they could get the Soviets on their side to negotiate better terms (just like how the Nazis hoped against hope that the British and Americans would suddenly join them against the Soviets at the last minute). Once the Soviets declared war, Japan's last hope of an external benefactor was gone, and Japan had little choice but to surrender. That's quite a bit different from the assertion that the Red Army scared the Japanese into surrendering and the US had nothing to do with it.

 

[trurle]

This gets asserted a lot but I have yet to see any convincing evidence. The Red Army did not and could not pose a threat to the Japanese home islands, while the US was an immediate threat and was causing civilian deaths to climb with each passing day.

From everything I've read, the Japanese government's biggest fear was being forced into an unconditional surrender to the US, which they felt would have meant that the leadership would be hanged and Japan would return to being a medieval backwater (which wasn't an insane thought since Japan is utterly bereft of all the resources needed to make a modern economy).

This fear of the US led the Japanese to vainly hope that they could get the Soviets on their side to negotiate better terms (just like how the Nazis hoped against hope that the British and Americans would suddenly join them against the Soviets at the last minute). Once the Soviets declared war, Japan's last hope of an external benefactor was gone, and Japan had little choice but to surrender. That's quite a bit different from the assertion that the Red Army scared the Japanese into surrendering and the US had nothing to do with it.

It is called Americanism. Thinking the world is rotating around Washington D.C.
Emperor Hirohito logic behind the surrender of Japan was roughly following:
1) The war with the US and British was started to counter military and economic interference against fledgling Japanese colony of Manchuria (Manchukuo) - part of Japan in minds of Japanese decision-makers. War seemed to proceed quite satisfactory until April 1945 when invasion to Okinawa started, and marginally satisfactory until 9 August 1945 when Soviet invasion started.
2) The battle for Manchukuo was already lost by 15 August 1945, with hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in immediate peril (subsequent massacres, mostly by Chinese Communists, proved the peril was real).
3) Why Japan should risk continuing the war if primary war goal have failed?

If Emperor`s surrender decision was triggered mostly by nuclear bombing, the surrender date would be before 12 August 1945 - not IOTL 15 August when it was already (correctly) suspected the US do not have the nuclear bombs in mass production yet.

Actually the Emperor`s reaction on nuclear bombing of Hiroshima was asking about Japanese capability to develop native nuclear weaponry until February 1946 - before expiration of non-aggression treaty with Soviet Union 11 March 1946. The intelligence data concerning Soviets buildup against Manchukuo have filtered through hierarchy losing a credibility in process to the point the Japanese top command did not believe the Manchukuo invasion until it already started. Even division-level commanders have assumed the invasion would start no earlier than middle September 1945.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

I disagree. Japan should've been forced to acknowledge its crimes like Germany instead of being allowed to gloss over them. It's a glaring injustice. As to the subject at hand, I agree with @Zheng He.

As someone whose grandfathers were both the Bataan Death March, and spent 6 months in Japanese POW camps, to watch their friends and family to be used as target practice, Japan got off easy, considering they still don't want to acknowledge things like "comfort women" or "Unit 731" or the "Marco Polo Bridge"...

 

[trurle]

As someone whose grandfathers were both the Bataan Death March, and spent 6 months in Japanese POW camps, to watch their friends and family to be used as target practice, Japan got off easy, considering they still don't want to acknowledge things like "comfort women" or "Unit 731" or the "Marco Polo Bridge"...

Well, how it possible to acknowledge Unit 731 after US government have hired the top scientists of it after war?
Regarding comfort women, the story is close to current politics, not the WWII history. Japanese government have publicly apologized for the practice (by the way, not criminal during WWII), and compensated survivors. The treaty clearly stating the end of settlement was signed decades ago. The recent controversy is rather result of Japanese perceiving South Korean government statements on the closed issue as state-sponsored racket.