Grim WWII WI: America resettling Japan with Nisei

I got this idea from one of those WWII dystopias from Changing the Times by Scott Palter. Apparently, if the U.S. had kept the blockade up on Japan for more months, the entire country would have been depopulated from starvation. So here's a dystopian idea: what if the U.S. had done that, or bombed the country even more, so that the Japanese in the Home Islands were hurt even more? And then the U.S. decides to resettle the country with Japanese-Americans (Issei and Nisei), who they guess to be more pliable?
 
At some point before everyone in japan died either Russia would've taken the initiative and invaded or the US would've stopped, most likely to keep the Russians from getting everything.
Still bad for the Japanese though, worse and OTL for sure. But ti have everybody in Japan starve to death is ASB, IMO.
 
While Japan was not self-sufficient in food, not ALL would starve to death. You can bomb infrastructure, food processing plants, distribution centers etc, but the agriculture is hard to bomb into nothingness. There's going to be rice to eat in the countryside, even if the city people starve.
 
I meant massive depopulations, not total extinction. The descriptions in Panay War are way over the top:

August 2nd, 1943 – Coronet – landings east of Tokyo. It will take almost a year to clear Tokyo – Osaka plain. In meantime Axis takes massive losses pulling key personnel out of home islands. Allies will take remaining ports 43-44. Form lodgement. Send bn’s and rgt’s into interior on kill sweeps. Think Draka in Erin’s books and then think that the first ranger unit sent in are all orphans from the Nanking massacre. By end of 44 they control all ports in home islands. 100K wild Japanese and Eurasian in interior. Japanese have broken the jewel. Less than 14M of the 100M are still alive. 3M are in garrisons in the South. More than half the remainder are honorary Japanese – Taiwanese, Koreans, Manchus, Mongols, misc. Asiatics, Jews, White Russians, partially Japanese children of comfort women and concubines. The Yamato Race is dead. They are the ruling elite of a war communist Russian satellite running from Manchuria and Far North Korea through North China to Peking, Tiensin, and Shantung. They hate the ‘allies’ who left them to die almost as much as they hate the few surviving samurai officers who they blame for the whole stupid war.

And the ones from Dark America:

We take Okinawa, Iwo, Tshuima, Pusan and begin the blockade of the Home Islands. B29’s and fire raids, massive air dropping of mines. Hirohito dies in great Tokyo fire raid. Military shogunate rules Japan.

6. We proceed more slowly in this TL than OTL in part because there is simply no way politically we will be able to redeploy the European armies to the Pacific. The citizen component will have to be demobilized. Fifth and later nukes used to finish off the Japanese Fleet. Shanghai, Yowata, Kure, Burunei, Singapore, Cam Rahn, Yokahama all nuked 45-46. Japanese fleet and merchant marine cease to exist above the coastal craft level. Japanese partially evacuate civil population from Home Islands by light craft over the Sea of Japan. Millions die in transit, tens of millions starve to death in Japan 45-46. The Japanese become an armed diaspora in Asia.

7. We spend 1946 clearing the Philippines and retaking the East Indian oil fields. Japanese basically drive Chiang back into Szechwan, occupy much of rest of China. Mao’s forces savaged. Civilian population of the Japanese Home Islands are gone or dead, but the garrison holds on, awaiting an invasion we do not want to make. Truman has read the projected losses and feels the invasion will be political suicide.

8. Pacific War ends with Japanese on mainland surrendering to the Soviets [Stalin has offered them a deal as a subordinate client state and they take it]. Russians begin to move 12/25/46. Soviets occupy Manchuria, most of China, most of Korea. US threatens to nuke Moscow, second Potsdam conference, 3/8/47, gives Chiang’s forces behind the new Soviet-Maoist-Japanese lines safe passage to a large chunk of South China – Kwangtung through Fukien and out to Szechwan – Japanese Home Islands given to US along with Kuriles and Sakhalin. Japanese and allied forces evacuate Southeast Asia, remaining Pacific strongholds, East Indies, Japan. Take most local reds and nationalists [collaborators] with them. US keeps an enclave in Korea around Pusan. US occupies Taiwan with Han portion of population either following their Japanese masters or being given to Chiang in Canton. It takes till the middle of 1948 to complete the population movements. Everybody cheats. Massacres, repressions, roundups of suspected stay behinds, sleepers sent through with transfers. The alliance structure is off and running. US unilaterally announces that it owns space and will fire on the heat signature of any rocket it sees. Reserves the right to do the same to nuclear installations.

...in the Postwar: essentially Japan Inc. [Manchuria, northern China] is a Soviet client while we have the island of Japan which we have repopulated and Americanized while they made Japanese out of their mixed Asian clients and the children of their comfort women
 
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Depopulated entirely? Not a chance. Japan still has the ability to feed some of its people, though many would starve.

Possible to enforce a total blockade? If you have enough subs and warships, I suppose so. The easier way is just to watch the possible ports of entry more than anything else.
 

Keenir

Banned
And then the U.S. decides to resettle the country with Japanese-Americans (Issei and Nisei), who they guess to be more pliable?

Interesting idea.


though...take a group of people out of internment* and ship them to an island chain where their distant cousins are starving.

I suspect the Nisei will look at you and ask "are you punishing us more??"


* = question: what of the Nisei who were serving in Europe during WW2? would they be sent to Japan alongside their interned wives and parents?
 
Historically, the population balance point of Japan was something like 25 million, IIRC. By 1940 in was about triple that (73 million).

Also note that it's a very rare famine that depopulates a country. Large famines kill more like 25-35% of the population.

To get the population low enough for something like this to be remotely plauseable is going to require an active genocide.
 
Think Draka in Erin’s books and then think that the first ranger unit sent in are all orphans from the Nanking massacre.

This reminded me...wasn't the original plan (made in 1942 or thereabouts) for the Republic of China to get occupation zones in Japan as compensation for war losses?
 
Historically, the population balance point of Japan was something like 25 million, IIRC. By 1940 in was about triple that (73 million).

Also note that it's a very rare famine that depopulates a country. Large famines kill more like 25-35% of the population.

To get the population low enough for something like this to be remotely plauseable is going to require an active genocide.

I agree, it's not plausible. Possible yes, if the Americans were willing to stack up a butchers bill that Stalin or Hitler would find repulsive. But that will wouldn't exist, particularly if the Japanese navy has been annihilated and its military is in shambles.
 
Unless the U.S. Navy went all-out to sink small Japanese fishing vessels, wouldn't the Japanese be able to make up enough of their food needs from fishing to avoid the kind of total depopulation from starving that's being talked about here?
 
Personally, I think starving to death every single inhabitant of the Home Islands is not possible since there'll always be some rice to sustain at least part of the population. Also, the Soviets will make a move toward the Home Islands if the US doesn't. It could have been significantly worse than OTL though. One of my TLs has Japan pounded thoroughly with 10 nukes and both sides utilize chemical and bacteriological weapon. Here's the link:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=146908
 
In retrospect, I really don't know what Scott Palter was going for when he wrote in depopulation of the Japanese home islands in those TLs.
 
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