How would the Japanese have resisted a American/Soviet invasion?

Near the end of World War II, the Japanese people became increasingly fanatical. Everyoen in the population, even children, were being taught how to defend the Japanese mainland from a Allied invasion, which in truth, was being planned by Allied commanders under the name 'Operation Downfall'-set for 1st November 1945.

As evidenced by their forces sweeping through Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula, the Soviet Union was also planning their own invasion of Japan from the north.

That being said, how would the Japanese military and civilian population have attempted to resist a American/Soviet invasion and how long would this resistance have lasted?
 
It would not have lasted very long. Even at the time, the Japanese leadership never cited the atomic bomb as the reason for their surrender, but rather the invasion of Manchuria and the Korean peninsula you mentioned -- they could never have held out against two great powers.
 
It would not have lasted very long. Even at the time, the Japanese leadership never cited the atomic bomb as the reason for their surrender, but rather the invasion of Manchuria and the Korean peninsula you mentioned -- they could never have held out against two great powers.

Moreover, I think the threat of Stalin's brutal reprisal/mass-rape occupation policies (al la Germany) inflicted on Japan's most important cultural centers was also enough to blunt any hope of a fanatical resistance movement.
Plus, at some point the rice would've completely run out so that coupled with mass starvation was enough to make a long term resistance campaign last no more than a few months should it occur in OTL.
 

CalBear

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Longer than some may believe.

Stalin wanted, primarily, Manchuria, with Hokkaido very much a secondary consideration. The Japanese were ready to go at Olympic hammer and tongs. Figure four, maybe five months to secure the southern third of Kyushu. By then the Red Army would have reached Pusan. Hokkaido would be a bloodbath for both sides, the Soviet strategic concept on ocean crossing amphibious landing was, to be kind, immature.

Operation Coronet would have been a bloodbath unlike anything ever seen, including the Eastern Front, at least as a percentage of the population, although the overwhelming casualties would be Japanese militia and civilians. Sometime in late 1946 whatever is left of the Japan's population effective just falls over and doesn't answer the bell.
 
The Japanese would have at some point used poison gas. This would have caused some Allied casualties, but the ability of the Japanese to deliver much to the battlefield was quite limited, and their own troops had essentially zero protection and the Japanese civilians less than zero. The USA on the other hand can deliver gas not only by artillery, of which they have lots, but also by aerial bombing against zero defenses. The result of mustard, phosgene, and lewisite will be horrendous as even if the USA makes a big effort to avoid using gas near civilian areas. Since Japanese troops will be in civilian areas, there will be a lot of "collateral" damage. In any case, given what the B-29s have been doing to Japan, I don't see the US being very discriminate on where they use gas - just concerns about being careful near their own troops.

of course the usual issues of Japanese civilians attacking troops, starvation, etc may very well result n Japanese culture becoming extinct. There will of course be surviving Japanese, but the culture...very possibly not. The next generation of Japanese may very well only speak English.
 
If the Battle of Okinawa is anything to go by, it would have been horrifying. The amount killed by non-combat suicide alone would have been astronomical. How long it lasts depends on how long the Japanese military wants to fight, or rather how long they can fight.
 
Honestly, the food issue strikes me as something that would take the wheels off of the Japanese defense in late 1945. Could they even get sufficient amounts of food and ammunition to the front lines mid-battle while getting bombed?
 
Moreover, I think the threat of Stalin's brutal reprisal/mass-rape occupation policies (al la Germany) inflicted on Japan's most important cultural centers was also enough to blunt any hope of a fanatical resistance movement.
Plus, at some point the rice would've completely run out so that coupled with mass starvation was enough to make a long term resistance campaign last no more than a few months should it occur in OTL.
Since the Red Army began their attack on Japan on August 19th 1945 by invading Manchuria, how long would it have taken them to land on Hokkaido?
 
Honestly, the food issue strikes me as something that would take the wheels off of the Japanese defense in late 1945. Could they even get sufficient amounts of food and ammunition to the front lines mid-battle while getting bombed?

Food is without a doubt the primary issue of the defense. The Japanese military honestly wouldn't care either way about ammo. They would hand them bamboo spears if they needed to and none of them would bat an eye. Food however is the important thing to consider, it's hard to charge enemies if you're starving to death after all.
 
Food is without a doubt the primary issue of the defense. The Japanese military honestly wouldn't care either way about ammo. They would hand them bamboo spears if they needed to and none of them would bat an eye. Food however is the important thing to consider, it's hard to charge enemies if you're starving to death after all.
When rebels/outlaws/bandits need food, they normally steal it from the population and/or the enemy. Would this even be a option?
 
Food is without a doubt the primary issue of the defense. The Japanese military honestly wouldn't care either way about ammo. They would hand them bamboo spears if they needed to and none of them would bat an eye. Food however is the important thing to consider, it's hard to charge enemies if you're starving to death after all.

Not caring about casualties is one thing, but if they reach the point that they're weighing the relative merits of bayonets vs. spears, then they've also reached the point where they can't inflict significant casualties on the enemy, either.

When rebels/outlaws/bandits need food, they normally steal it from the population and/or the enemy. Would this even be a option?

The locals won't have much food to give, and the enemy will kill them wholesale on their food raids. Doesn't sound good.
 
When rebels/outlaws/bandits need food, they normally steal it from the population and/or the enemy. Would this even be a option?
Well, I can't imagine it would work out too well. They certainly wouldn't fair well against the Americans, that's for damn sure. As far as stealing from the populace? They might not have anything to give. As TRH said, doesn't sound good.

Not caring about casualties is one thing, but if they reach the point that they're weighing the relative merits of bayonets vs. spears, then they've also reached the point where they can't inflict significant casualties on the enemy, either.
That's certainly the case, but Japanese resistance isn't about defeating America at that point, it's about dying for Japan. This is a culture with that has a long history of ritual suicide and they have plenty grenades and stabbing implements they can use. They'd use farm tools if they had to. None of it has anything to do with efficiency or effectiveness, not even for the general staff.

American losses would obviously still be great but they would be far, far less than the Japanese.
 
The US being involved in an Eastern Front style horror show would have... Interesting effects. For a start, the US is probably significantly more anti-war in the 40 years following WW2. It may see air-power as less of a cure-all. Almost certainly it will mean the US will have a more Soviet view of nuclear war (i.e. that states and armies may persist as organized entities after the bombs fall).

I do think that Japanese culture would survive the invasion. The Emperor may have to go, but the Japanese nation, language and culture would survive (albeit more changed than OTL.

I'm not sure that the Soviets would invade more than Hokkaido - the Soviets just don't have the landing craft required to land enough troops on Honshu to do more than get some poor Red Army soldiers skewered. By the time the Soviets did have enough landing craft (either of their own or imported from the US), the US is likely to have a restive Honshu under occupation.

Japan being invaded would draw the war out enough that the Soviets are likely to occupy all of Korea. That has huge implications for American involvement in Asia as well as the development of the Cold War.

fasquardon
 

CalBear

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Honestly, the food issue strikes me as something that would take the wheels off of the Japanese defense in late 1945. Could they even get sufficient amounts of food and ammunition to the front lines mid-battle while getting bombed?
Food and ammo would become an issue, but not until the defenders had mainly been wiped out in any case. Units were being deployed with two units of fire, although some were coming up short there is a reasonable chance that this would have been made up by the time Olympic actually took place (after the delay caused by the October 1945 typhoon). Once those troops had expended all their ammo, it really wouldn't matter since there was no real plan to withdraw. Troops would stand and die, in place, along with most of the militia and a good percentage of the civilians in the combat area.The IJA and IJN planning expected their forces to be wiped out, just as they had been across the Pacific. The Japanese had 450,000 combat troops on Kyushu, not counting the "volunteer militia" (in August of 1945 the Japanese had 2,350,000 troops under arms IN the Home Islands, plus several million other quasi-military employees of the Army and Navy, plus a "volunteer" force that numbered over 25 million, although it is doubtful more than 15% of this last group would have actually appeared). The Japanese did not expect ANY of those 450,000 troops to survive unless the Allied invasion was driven into the sea.

The Japanese had a very well designed defensive plan, with some "innovations" that would have caused massive losses. In another thread on the subject of the invasion I discussed the underwater swimmer plans, including the underwater "bunkers" for sheltering the swimmers until the time to deploy, something that the U.S. never even suspected to exist until after the surrender. The U.S. would, best case, have suffered more losses than on D-Day BEFORE the first U.S. boot touched the beach. The Japanese were well aware of the power the USN could deploy via the gun line and what American air power was capable of, their defense plan called for troops to be IN PLACE prior to the invasion (the Japanese had correctly identified ALL the landing beaches, not just on Kyushu, but on Honshu as well), with any movement being by small units to prepared positions, often using natural or man-made caves/tunnels.

If the Japanese didn't suffer at least 500,000 KIA (including militia and "collateral") just in the taking of the southern third of Kyushu it would have been a miracle.
 
The US being involved in an Eastern Front style horror show would have... Interesting effects.

Mile for mile, the Pacific Islands were pretty bad. I'm not sure how they match up to Stalingrad, but I've heard it's close or worse.

Doing it on an assembly line would be a very different experience, that would be interesting.
 
The Japanese would have at some point used poison gas. This would have caused some Allied casualties, but the ability of the Japanese to deliver much to the battlefield was quite limited, and their own troops had essentially zero protection and the Japanese civilians less than zero. The USA on the other hand can deliver gas not only by artillery, of which they have lots, but also by aerial bombing against zero defenses. The result of mustard, phosgene, and lewisite will be horrendous as even if the USA makes a big effort to avoid using gas near civilian areas. Since Japanese troops will be in civilian areas, there will be a lot of "collateral" damage. In any case, given what the B-29s have been doing to Japan, I don't see the US being very discriminate on where they use gas - just concerns about being careful near their own troops.

of course the usual issues of Japanese civilians attacking troops, starvation, etc may very well result n Japanese culture becoming extinct. There will of course be surviving Japanese, but the culture...very possibly not. The next generation of Japanese may very well only speak English.
The Americans also had 500,000 tons of captured German nerve gas in theatre in 1945
 
Mile for mile, the Pacific Islands were pretty bad. I'm not sure how they match up to Stalingrad, but I've heard it's close or worse.

Doing it on an assembly line would be a very different experience, that would be interesting.
Not so much,after Okinawa the Japanese military was critically short on artillery and automatic weapons. Two things you can't start a two sided blood bath without,it would be a very lopsided affair
 

Thomas1195

Banned
The US being involved in an Eastern Front style horror show would have... Interesting effects. For a start, the US is probably significantly more anti-war in the 40 years following WW2. It may see air-power as less of a cure-all. Almost certainly it will mean the US will have a more Soviet view of nuclear war (i.e. that states and armies may persist as organized entities after the bombs fall).

I do think that Japanese culture would survive the invasion. The Emperor may have to go, but the Japanese nation, language and culture would survive (albeit more changed than OTL.

I'm not sure that the Soviets would invade more than Hokkaido - the Soviets just don't have the landing craft required to land enough troops on Honshu to do more than get some poor Red Army soldiers skewered. By the time the Soviets did have enough landing craft (either of their own or imported from the US), the US is likely to have a restive Honshu under occupation.

Japan being invaded would draw the war out enough that the Soviets are likely to occupy all of Korea. That has huge implications for American involvement in Asia as well as the development of the Cold War.

fasquardon
Not only that, Soviet naval transport would be big targets for IJN. Even the remnants of IJN would be enough to steamroll the Soviet amphibious assault.
 
Not only that, Soviet naval transport would be big targets for IJN. Even the remnants of IJN would be enough to steamroll the Soviet amphibious assault.

If they weren't all in the wrong place without enough fuel to traverse to the get back up north. Plus, by the time the Sovs are in position to actually try for Hokkaido (early-'46), the remnants will certainly have been expended against the American invasion force. For the IJN to get involved also requires the Soviets to basically hand the Japanese plenty of warning time by doing an American-style amphibious assaults with a fleet anchoring off the intended invasion spots for a prolonged period of time prior to the actual landings beginning, but what examples we have of Soviet amphib operations in WW2 just don't jive with that at all. The Soviets normally shunned large amphibious landings against prepared defenses, instead preferring to infiltrate ashore in undefended spots with several "reconnaissance in force" landings. They then would have chosen to reinforce where they had achieved maximum success, allowing the less successful landings to whither on the vine.
 
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