Instead of the Manhattan project.

Delta Force

Banned
The IJA may very well have rejected a peace overture, but of course that option was never offered to the Japanese. The historical record is not very favorable to the United States on this point. Ultimately we did end up letting the emperor stay, the major sticking point for Japan, and we did it in an unofficial manner by promising them that we would let it be so. That happened after the atomic bombing. If Japan did not surrender, we would have the fallback options of Downfall and the atomic bombs, and thus making the mere offer of peace changes the strategic situation in no way.

Many of the contemporary military leadership thought that casualties would have been somewhere in the range of 30,000-40,000 on the American side, although of course there are the massive worst case estimates, and the figures do not include Japanese soldiers and civilians. The atomic bomb thus is an attractive option, given estimates of casualties from the attacks given by scientists (20,000) to what actually happened.

The thing is though, we never really entertained a peace agreement with the only condition being that Japan be allowed to maintain the emperor. That was the one option guaranteed to result in no fatalities on any side. Even if the odds were quite low, which they may well have been, it is still the best alternative given the other two options (invasion and atomic attack) which result in a longer and more deadly war. We did not even allow for any low level unofficial diplomatic discussions with the Japanese on the issue.
 

Cook

Banned
The atomic bomb's role in the Japanese surrender is overstated.
You are essentially correct but not for the reasons you have given.
Japan also wanted to surrender shortly after VE Day on the condition that the emperor be kept in power. The US rejected that condition...
No attempt was made by Japan to surrender following VE Day (8 May, 1945) and prior to the Potsdam Deceleration (26 July 1945). Following the fall of Germany there were attempts made by individual Japanese diplomats in several European countries to open negotiations with the allies. These were ignored because the allies knew that the diplomats were not acting on authority from Tokyo. The Allies had cracked the Japanese diplomatic cyphers in early 1941 and from then on were able to read all Japanese diplomatic telegrams sent; they knew that none of the peace overtures they were receiving via neutral states in Europe had any validity because they were able to decipher and read the Japanese telegrams faster than the embassy staff were. They rightly ignored these red herrings because they threatened to muddy the waters before any real negotiations could take place. Worse than that, as the back channel negotiations with Karl Wolff in what became known as the Bern Incident showed, was that there was the serious risk of a breach in the unity of the Big Three alliance from any such talks, no matter how minor. This was not a rejection of an offer of surrender; it was ignoring individuals who did not have the authority to speak for the Japanese government.

Claims by General Arnold and the other bomber barons that they could bomb Japan into submission without the need for an invasion don’t have any validity; they’d made the same claim with regard to Germany for three and a half years with no evidence to support the claim that the enemy would collapse internally purely from aerial bombardment. Just as Germany had been a rigidly controlled society with any dissent being crushed unmercifully by the Gestapo, the Kempeitai scrutinised every aspect of Japanese society and meted out lethal punishment for even minor infractions. While the Nazi regime authorised gangs to apply summary justice to anyone they suspected of less than one hundred precent loyalty in the dying days of the Battle for Germany, the Kempeitai had had this power since 1941. No dissent was possible.

Claims by the Admirals that the Japanese were soon to be starved into submission can be equally discounted. The Japanese government calculated that the civilian population were living on an average of 1800 Calories per day and even if it dropped lower it would not have led to surrender because the regime simply did not care how many civilians died. Vice-Admiral Onishi, the creator of the Kamiakze, insisted that 20 million civilians should sacrifice themselves in attacks against the invading armies when they came. Admiral Ugaki, champion of Japans suicidal midget submarine program rejected such half measures; he called for 100 million Japanese to die repelling the invaders.

While the blockade did mean that no further resources made it to the Japanese home islands from the Southern Resource Sphere that does not mean that Japan was on the verge of collapse or that they did not have enough essential resources with which to fight. In December 1941 Japan had commenced the Pacific War with 29.6 million barrels of oil. In July 1945 they had 800,000 barrels of oil left, of which 316,000 barrels of oil were reserved exclusively for Kamikaze operations; Japan would have run out of aircraft and midget submarines well before she ran out of oil to run them.

All parties of the Allied high command knew that Japan could not be considered defeated until a nineteen year old American kid with a rifle was walking down the streets of Tokyo and without the Atomic Bomb that would require an invasion. The highest priority of the American delegation to Yalta in February 1945 was to get Stalin to agree to enter the war against Japan because the job was too big for the Americans to do alone without paying an unacceptably high price in casualties; the mathematics was simple: every Russian killed fighting the Japanese was one less American killed.


When the Allies invaded Okinawa in April 1945 Emperor Hirohito pressed for a maximum effort to be undertaken in the defence of the island so that Japan would be still considered a credible military force by the Soviet Union, who he’d authorised negotiations with: Soviet oil in return for Japan’s support in the inevitable war between the Soviet Union and the Western Democracies. It was the same delusional thinking that had infected Goebbels, Himmler and other senior Nazis in the last days of the regime. Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov replied on April 5, 1945 by rejecting the Japanese request for oil and told the Japanese that their Non-Aggression Pact would not be renewed. Even this didn’t immediately alarm the Japanese command; the Pact wasn’t due to expire until 1946.

The Japanese then asked Molotov to act as an intermediary between Japan and the Allies for an end to hostilities. This was not a surrender: the Japanese wanted to keep their empire in Korea, Manchuria, Formosa and the Mandated Islands of the Pacific and there would certainly not be an occupation of the Home Islands, the only concession were willing to consider was withdrawing their forces from China (Not however Manchuria) and bringing an end to the regrettable China incident that had commenced in 1937 and had been the reason they’d felt the need to go to war against the British Empire and America in the first place. Molotov rejected the Japanese request, the Soviets already intended to attack the Japanese and Molotov and Stalin were about to meet the Allied leaders again at Potsdam.

Following Potsdam the allies issued a clear, unambiguous ultimatum to the Japanese on 26 July, 1945, the full text of which is here: http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html

Section 3 of the declaration reads:

'3. The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan. The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.'

This could not be worded any more unambiguously and the rest of the document uses equally plain language: Japan had to surrender unconditionally. Nowhere in the Potsdam Declaration is Emperor mentioned.

When the Supreme War Leadership Council, consisting of Emperor Hirohito, Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki and the inner War Cabinet met on July 27, 1945 to consider the declaration from Potsdam they were contemptuous. The Chief of the Navy General Staff, Admiral Toyoda advocated rejecting the allied demands as absurd: Japan was undefeated. The Foreign Minister successfully argued against making an outright rejection. Instead no reply at all was given. The rejection was instead leaked to Japanese newspapers the next day and from there the Allies learned of it.

On 6 August 1945 the first Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Even this was not enough to force a change of mood in the senior command; in fact it barely seems to have registered on the leadership in Tokyo, possibly because the resulting devastation was less than what had already been inflicted on Tokyo by mass firebombing raids. Hiroshima was a major base for the Imperial Navy (and was the reason it was selected as a target), the Marine Training Division headquarters was at Ujina, just four kilometres from the epicentre of the atomic blast. The headquarters became a hospital for the injured and a control centre for disaster response and reported to Tokyo that, ‘with sufficient preparation and safety measures, it is nothing to be afraid of.’

Two days later the Soviet Union declared war upon the Empire of Japan and invaded Manchuria on the 9th, the day after that the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

Even this wasn’t enough to elicit an immediate surrender; it was not until the 15th, fully six days after the second atomic bombing and after even more fire-bombing that the Emperor radioed his Unconditional Surrender. This needs to be emphasised: the surrender was unconditional. No immunity for the Emperor is mentioned in his radio message and none is noted in the formal Instrument of Surrender signed in Tokyo harbour on September 2nd, 1945. The key lines of which are:

'We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese Armed Forces and all Armed Forces under Japanese control wherever situated.'

'The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the State shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender.'

Following the surrender of Japan the leaders were interrogated and from the record of these interrogations it is clear that what forced the Japanese regime’s decision to surrender was the belief that the Soviets would shortly invade the home islands; former Prime Minister Prince Konoye said that the Japanese fear of Soviet invasion of the homeland was pathological.

So yes, the Atomic Bomb’s role in the surrender of Japan is overstated; the decisive event amazingly enough was the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan, invasion of Manchuria and the threatened invasion by them of the Japanese home islands.

But the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria was brought forward because of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Prior to that Stalin had told the Americans that his forces were not yet ready to fight Japan and it was only his belief that Japan would surrender following the bombing that made him change his plans; without the atomic bombing in early August the Soviets would not have attacked for at least another month. Moreover at Yalta, Roosevelt had been willing to concede Manchuria and Korea to Stalin in return for Stalin declaring war on Japan. Roosevelt also promised to supply American Amphibious landing craft to the Soviets for the invasion of the home islands; the Soviet Union was fully expected to be a major party in the invasion of Japan proper. Truman at Potsdam, armed with the knowledge that America now had the atomic bomb, felt a far less a need to bring the Soviets into the war and no Soviet occupation zone of Japan was offered.

It is clear then that without the atomic bomb the Japanese would not have surrendered in August 1945 and the invasion would have gone ahead in November 1945 in conjunction with a Soviet amphibious invasion. How quickly the Japanese would have surrendered to the Americans to prevent the Soviets overrunning the home islands then becomes the question and how large the Soviet area of occupation would have been becomes the next question.

For those wondering, the Hirohito was never given immunity from prosecution. Douglas Macarthur, who always believed that he ‘knew the Oriental Mind’ better than anyone else, decided that Hirohito was necessary for the peaceful occupation of Japan. He had no evidence to back up this claim; the Japanese military and imperial regime had been thorough discredited by defeat and the destruction of Japan’s cities and the Americans had to actually work hard to popularise the Emperor again. Had the decision been made to prosecute Hirohito there was more than enough evidence to convict him.
The IJA may very well have rejected a peace overture, but of course that option was never offered to the Japanese. The historical record is not very favorable to the United States on this point.
This is a ridiculous statement to make; the Potsdam Declaration is a peace offer.
 
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The idea of engaging the IJA in China might not sound very attractive to British or American commanders. It was already a vast internment camp for huge numbers of Japanese soldiers, from a Western perspective - all going in there would do is give them a chance to cause casualties (ignoring all the Chinese they were already killing, of course). And even if the entire IJA force in mainland Asia had been wiped out, it seems a bit unlikely this would change the results of whatever strategic calculations were being made in the Home Islands. The only thing I can see that might make this more appealing is the chance to reduce Soviet influence in the region, but it would be expensive in terms of lives and have debatable results in any case.
Really, it's hard to make this idea sound attractive. Thanks to The Princess Bride we all know the first two laws of warfare - never fight a land war in Asia, and never gamble with a Sicilian when death is in the cards. I'd add a third: never trust any plan that includes the words "and then the natives will welcome us with open arms". This idea breaks at least two of those, and I'd be reluctant to support it in the absence of any more persuasive reasons.
 
? I've got some sympathy for the revisionist point of view--that Truman was mainly thinking of playing hardball with the Russians.

I've never agreed with this line of thinking and a great piece of evidence against it is, again, Project Hula. If the Atomic Bomb was supposed to be a warning message against the Japanese, why were we so vigorously helping the Soviets get ready for an amphibious invasion of the homeland even after the bombs fell and on right up until the Japanese gave in?

Cook said:
It is clear then that without the atomic bomb the Japanese would not have surrendered in August 1945 and the invasion would have gone ahead in November 1945 in conjunction with a Soviet amphibious invasion.


The Soviets actually planned for a August invasion of Hokkaido but longer-then-expected resistance in the Kuriles and Sakhalin forced a delay into September. If the Soviets failed at it the first time (actually not likely [see the thread I linked to in my previous post on this thread] but possible), the second attempt would likely come in November.

Further on, a Soviet invasion of Honshu is a big question mark since Soviet plans make no mention of it. I'm pretty sure Stalin would consider the question once he had seized hold of Hokkaido, but there is nothing indicating that the Soviets thought they would have the opportunity to try for it.
 
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