How Silent Fall the Cherry Blossoms
- Thread starter Geon
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Talk about opening Pandora's box.
The problem with opening it--you can never close it again.
How will this affect the Cold War?
There will be a conspiracy theory that FDR knew about the Los Angeles attack and let it happen (if there is one regarding FDR and Pearl Harbor, there will be one regarding this attack).
The problem with opening it--you can never close it again.
How will this affect the Cold War?
There will be a conspiracy theory that FDR knew about the Los Angeles attack and let it happen (if there is one regarding FDR and Pearl Harbor, there will be one regarding this attack).
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Artatochor
Banned
The hero is Hirohito...he might order Japanese doctors to help the victims, in return for Japan avoiding annihilation.
One thing in Los Angeles's favor in case of a pneumonic plague: the city had an outbreak of it in 1924 that killed dozens (mainly in the run-down neighborhoods in Los Angeles).
So when the plague does turn pneumonic, some doctor will remember the 1924 outbreak and notify the LACG immediately.
So when the plague does turn pneumonic, some doctor will remember the 1924 outbreak and notify the LACG immediately.
I was going to reply: "To what end? The US is already in the war.", then I realized it will be something along the lines of "So that racist America could genocide the poor, innocent Japanese!".
Otis R. Needleman
Banned
Nope. That would be handled by troops in the local area and only if they were needed.
That's what I'm thinking too - once he realizes the scale of the retribution the Americans are capable of, he could very easily surrender & hand over Unit 731.
Would Tojo and his merry men accept such an order though? Even though the Emperor was divine they didn't seem all that obedient when push came to shove.
1)The Japanese government attacked the US with biological warfare, and the US is supposed to believe the very same Japanese government wants to help?!? In real life, the offer, even if sincere, would surely be thought an attempt to SPREAD the disease, not stop it.
2) how would the hypothetical doctors get from Japan to the US? Solvable, especially if necessity or goodwill were involved. Since neither are, no ones likely to try very hard.
3) the US has far more doctors than japan has. How much good would a few more doctors do.
4) theres really nothing the doctors can do, anyway, really. Its a public health matter with quarantine and rat extermination being most of what can be done. There is, afaik, no treatment to cure the disease.
Reasoning
I still do not understand the reasoning of the Japanese. Let's see, "The Americans are coming closer and they are still mad about Pearl Harbor so let's make them even angrier by using germ warfare."
I still do not understand the reasoning of the Japanese. Let's see, "The Americans are coming closer and they are still mad about Pearl Harbor so let's make them even angrier by using germ warfare."
Geon
Donor
I still do not understand the reasoning of the Japanese. Let's see, "The Americans are coming closer and they are still mad about Pearl Harbor so let's make them even angrier by using germ warfare."
Gladiator
You might want to ask that question of a lot of things the Japanese did in our TL. They treated POWs brutally. Their record of treatment of occupied peoples was atrocious. Unit 731 was a fact and they were losing the war. Operation PX was not something I made up, it was a real operation planned for the I-400 subs. Only a few cooler heads managed to stop the plans from being carried out. The Japanese were desperate to try anything that would slow the U.S. advance or shake U.S. morale. they hoped this operation would shake up the U.S. enough to allow the Japanese to negotiate a more favorable peace. But, the Japanese badly and I do mean badly underestimated the U.S. determination to carry this war to its bitter end.
Geon
Yamamoto
Given the use of the Japanese Subs for this mission, this would have had to be approved by the Japanese Navy.
I wonder if it will be asked iTTL whether Yamamoto could have stopped the biological attack if he had not been killed. The I-400 series was entirely Yamamoto's creation and all of the proposals that he made with them were with conventional weapons (bombing the entry to the Panama Canal for example).
In that regard, the decision of the administration to kill Yamamoto might be viewed as a mistake in retrospect.
Given the use of the Japanese Subs for this mission, this would have had to be approved by the Japanese Navy.
I wonder if it will be asked iTTL whether Yamamoto could have stopped the biological attack if he had not been killed. The I-400 series was entirely Yamamoto's creation and all of the proposals that he made with them were with conventional weapons (bombing the entry to the Panama Canal for example).
In that regard, the decision of the administration to kill Yamamoto might be viewed as a mistake in retrospect.
Geon
Donor
Morning Meeting
Date: November 8, 1944
Location: Los Angeles (City Hall)
Time: 9:00 a.m.
The LACG met at city hall after a long night. By now two important facts were known.
A map of metropolitan Los Angeles was set up behind the task force. On it the locations of the bomb impacts were highlighted with white pins. Red pins indicated the residences of people who had already contracted the disease.
During the next hour the LACG decided on several recommendations which would be made to the mayor’s office. First and foremost all police, fire, and medical personnel who had been summoned to any of the impact areas would report for immediate medical examinations with no exceptions. Second, all patients with the symptoms of plague would be moved immediately to isolation wards in their respective hospitals. Third, the elementary school where the child designated Patient 3 went was to be temporarily closed and the classrooms sprayed with insecticide to kill any fleas. Finally, all those with students at the school were to be asked to take their children to their family physicians immediately and to report any flu-like symptoms. Memorandum would be sent out to every hospital administrator warning them of the disease and how to take proper precautions to avoid spreading it.
A major issue was whether to inform the public or not. After a heated exchange between the mayor’s office and other members of the task group it was agreed that releasing information now would be better then letting rumor and gossip create problems later. A carefully worded announcement would be written up for the mayor to announce to the city later that night. In order to limit the possibility of the disease spreading to soldiers all leaves would be cancelled into LA until further notice.
One major issue was very troubling to the LACG. The disease had been active for at least 48 hours before anyone became aware of it. That meant that people from Los Angeles might already be carrying the disease to other parts of the country. The Ft. Detrick group would immediately be contacting Washington and requesting the Surgeon General’s Office to contact hospitals in major cities to be on the lookout for symptoms of bubonic plague. Doing so however would take a few days.
One good piece of news was that the fleas that had apparently been in the bombs would eventually die out and since the disease was endemic to the area already it was very likely after a brief period the epidemic would be over. The bad news was that no one knew how long it would take for the disease to run its course or how many would be affected before it did.
As the meeting concluded an aide came in and whispered to the head of the task force showing him a note. He briefly scanned it sighed and went to the map. He removed one of the red pins and replaced it with a black one. Henry Jennings designated Patient 0 had just succumbed to the plague. Sadly many more black pins would pepper the board before this was over.
Date: November 8, 1944
Location: Los Angeles (City Hall)
Time: 9:00 a.m.
The LACG met at city hall after a long night. By now two important facts were known.
- Overnight 23 people had been admitted to local hospitals with symptoms indicative of bubonic plague.
- All of these people it was learned either lived near or had some contact with pieces of the bombs that fell on November 5.
A map of metropolitan Los Angeles was set up behind the task force. On it the locations of the bomb impacts were highlighted with white pins. Red pins indicated the residences of people who had already contracted the disease.
During the next hour the LACG decided on several recommendations which would be made to the mayor’s office. First and foremost all police, fire, and medical personnel who had been summoned to any of the impact areas would report for immediate medical examinations with no exceptions. Second, all patients with the symptoms of plague would be moved immediately to isolation wards in their respective hospitals. Third, the elementary school where the child designated Patient 3 went was to be temporarily closed and the classrooms sprayed with insecticide to kill any fleas. Finally, all those with students at the school were to be asked to take their children to their family physicians immediately and to report any flu-like symptoms. Memorandum would be sent out to every hospital administrator warning them of the disease and how to take proper precautions to avoid spreading it.
A major issue was whether to inform the public or not. After a heated exchange between the mayor’s office and other members of the task group it was agreed that releasing information now would be better then letting rumor and gossip create problems later. A carefully worded announcement would be written up for the mayor to announce to the city later that night. In order to limit the possibility of the disease spreading to soldiers all leaves would be cancelled into LA until further notice.
One major issue was very troubling to the LACG. The disease had been active for at least 48 hours before anyone became aware of it. That meant that people from Los Angeles might already be carrying the disease to other parts of the country. The Ft. Detrick group would immediately be contacting Washington and requesting the Surgeon General’s Office to contact hospitals in major cities to be on the lookout for symptoms of bubonic plague. Doing so however would take a few days.
One good piece of news was that the fleas that had apparently been in the bombs would eventually die out and since the disease was endemic to the area already it was very likely after a brief period the epidemic would be over. The bad news was that no one knew how long it would take for the disease to run its course or how many would be affected before it did.
As the meeting concluded an aide came in and whispered to the head of the task force showing him a note. He briefly scanned it sighed and went to the map. He removed one of the red pins and replaced it with a black one. Henry Jennings designated Patient 0 had just succumbed to the plague. Sadly many more black pins would pepper the board before this was over.
Otis R. Needleman
Banned
Yup, and we didn't stop going apeshit on the Japanese until they cried uncle. Here, we aren't going to give a shit what or who they cry for...they're going to get it.
Otis R. Needleman
Banned
Great update. You're doing a fine job.
And the Japanese will pay dearly for every black pin on any map, whether it be Los Angeles or anywhere else in the USA where someone died of this plague.
The moment I saw this TL, I got pretty excited because this is my Master's thesis, Unit 731 and the American Intelligence Community. You are spot on about Donovan not knowing much about 731 in 1944, everything he was getting out of China and SE-Asia was totally second hand conjecture, nothing was ever concrete. I can imagine FDR demanding that Donovan get OSS agents into Manchuria to investigate the claims coming out of occupied China, but it's going to be difficult. Neither Donovan nor anyone in the OSS truly understood the magnitude of the Japanese bio-weapons program until the war was over. The first concrete evidence of human experimentation didn't emerge until September 1945 when Dr. Ishii and some of his associates began meeting with the technical and scientific research teams sent to Japan to study the advances that Japan made during the war.
The problem with 731 is that the delivery mechanism does not provide ample distribution of the plague-infected fleas to create more than a localized outbreak within the context of a modern health infrastructure. I can see a few thousand deaths, especially in the poorer neighborhoods, but even in China with an almost medieval medical infrastructure during the war in areas where open air tests occurred, no more than a few thousand people died. Now, Ishii's human experiments were beyond inhumane and were absolutely deserving of a war crimes tribunal hearing, but the US really walked away from its responsibilities and embraced these guys in hopes that they would give the US the kind of advantage in bio-warfare to offset any advances that the Soviets made.
In addition, you mentioned it in the last update, Bubonic plague is already endemic in the area around Los Angeles. In most of the southwest it's already endemic and had been brought over during the Spanish conquest. They have the health infrastructure to handle small-scale outbreaks, and at the time of this outbreak in 1944 Streptomycin is in the laboratory testing phases. Streptomycin is used in 1946 to treat pulmonary tuberculosis in a double-blind, but I'm sure that the guys from Fort Detrick know about this and might give the boys at Rutgers a call to rush production. Remember, Bubonic Plague is a bacteria and they've got some effective antibiotics to use and the good news is that with treatment the fatality rate drops to around 15%, which is pretty good, it's only with untreated Bubonic plague that fatality rates jump to 40-50%.
I've got a pile of research if you want me to forward it along. Most of it is a jumble of anecdotal stories collected after the war and half-completed investigations launched by OSS and military intelligence during the occupation.
The problem with 731 is that the delivery mechanism does not provide ample distribution of the plague-infected fleas to create more than a localized outbreak within the context of a modern health infrastructure. I can see a few thousand deaths, especially in the poorer neighborhoods, but even in China with an almost medieval medical infrastructure during the war in areas where open air tests occurred, no more than a few thousand people died. Now, Ishii's human experiments were beyond inhumane and were absolutely deserving of a war crimes tribunal hearing, but the US really walked away from its responsibilities and embraced these guys in hopes that they would give the US the kind of advantage in bio-warfare to offset any advances that the Soviets made.
In addition, you mentioned it in the last update, Bubonic plague is already endemic in the area around Los Angeles. In most of the southwest it's already endemic and had been brought over during the Spanish conquest. They have the health infrastructure to handle small-scale outbreaks, and at the time of this outbreak in 1944 Streptomycin is in the laboratory testing phases. Streptomycin is used in 1946 to treat pulmonary tuberculosis in a double-blind, but I'm sure that the guys from Fort Detrick know about this and might give the boys at Rutgers a call to rush production. Remember, Bubonic Plague is a bacteria and they've got some effective antibiotics to use and the good news is that with treatment the fatality rate drops to around 15%, which is pretty good, it's only with untreated Bubonic plague that fatality rates jump to 40-50%.
I've got a pile of research if you want me to forward it along. Most of it is a jumble of anecdotal stories collected after the war and half-completed investigations launched by OSS and military intelligence during the occupation.
Whilst I'm sure you know a hell of a lot about Unit 731 and the OSS (and probably a hell of a lot more), you obviously don't know too much about pharmacognosy (developing new drugs) or pharmaceutics (turning drugs into medicines)*. Getting Streptomycin into production as a medicine in time to have any effect on this outbreak of plague would be ASB territory even if they knew it would be effective against Yersinia Pestis in vivo and applied Manhattan Project levels of investment. There's too much basic science that needs to be done, and that takes time that can't be reduced by throwing more resources at the problem. As they don't know that it will be an effective treatment, it's even more ASB.
*Don't worry, you've just made the same assumption thousands of people do when they see a new potential cure for a disease they've got reported on the news and go to ask their doctor or other healthcare professional why they can't try that new drug. In my former life as a pharmacy technician, this was a conversation I had a lot with people.
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