Japan doesn't surrender and US ops to starve and bomb. How long does the war last

Yeah, that doesn't fit with what was happening on Shumshu at all. By the time the Japanese garrison laid down their arms, the Japanese shore batteries had already been destroyed and the Soviets had a solid, secure beachhead which was receiving a steady flow of reinforcements, including heavy artillery. The attempted counterattack by the 11th tank regiment the day before had seen it completely wiped out (the wreckage of it's tanks are still there too this day). That the force experienced difficulties in establishing the beachhead is well recorded, but at no point was it at risk in being wiped out.

Shore batteries might have been destroyed, but the Soviets were out up to 2,400 dead/missing and 1,000 wounded on the first day alone (they had less than 10,000 men overall). The entire island of Shumshu (let alone Paramushiro) was fortified ala Iwo Jima and between them there were over 20,000 fanatical defenders. For their part, Japanese casualties (according to their own records) numbered roughly 600, of whom 200 were dead or missing. In other words, the Soviets would have run out of manpower in short order.

Bonus spoilers: I have several projects in-progress that I plan on posting here and on SpaceBattles, this being one of them - on 10 January 1945 the US Army Service Forces published a series of secret plans for large scale operations in Soviet Kamchatka and the northern Kuril Islands, specifically Shumshu and Paramushiro, which I have in their entirety. The conclusion? Just to occupy Shumshu and the northernmost fifth of Paramushiro would require four reinforced divisions with massive air support from Kamchatka and major fleet elements accompanying - 137,500 men, 19,500 vehicles, and hundreds of aircraft. This would entail the creation of not only a brand-new corps headquarters, but also an entirely new air force based out of Alaska and the far eastern USSR.

Compare this with the motley crew that actually landed under Gnechko's command, and the scenario becomes extremely far-fetched.
 
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From what I can tell, Sandusky doesn't seem to have been working with the latest military data. His book is from 1982, which would be well before the opening of Soviet archives allowed better perspective on Soviet military operations in that time period. Poking around, there seems to be some disagreement about precisely when Kim Il-Sung arrived in North Korea: some authors do agree with Sandusky and say October, while others say he was brought in around mid-September. Regardless, his arrival personally in the wake of the Red Army's advance isn't really that important as he was only brought in after the Soviets were well established.

By that same logic, August Storm by Glantz is likewise invalid as it is a contemporary of Sandusky's work. In the absence of any sort of compelling counter-evidence, I see no reason to doubt Sandusky's description of the situation. Indeed, as @wiking has pointed out before by the time of the Japanese surrender the Red Army's offensive into Manchuria had largely come to a standstill due to logistical difficulties; the use of surrendered Japanese trains to occupy Port Arthur over a week after the surrender, for example.

A large chunk of the Soviet fleet which invaded Shumshu did so from Vladivostok and in doing so had to travel much further then to any hypothetical landing point on the western coast of Hokkaido. That coast is also within the operational range of Soviet aircraft flying out of airbases around Vladivostok, so it isn't guaranteed that the Japanese would have air superiority.

Shumshu also didn't have 450 Japanese aircraft and 100,000 soldiers on it either. Given the VVS was only able to deploy less than 100 aircraft for Shumshu and about 200 for the movement into Korea, I'm content to say the Japanese definitely will have air superiority.

Troop strength that were landed by sea in North Korea in the period of August 13-17 alone amounts to 6,500 men, with the main bulk of 5,000 landing on August 15th. Overall, the personnel were mostly drawn from the 355th Rifle Division, with the rest coming from some non-divisional specialist units (naval infantry battalions and the like). Rather a far cry from "a few hundred guys". I'm still trying to pin down the numbers for the landings that took place on the 18th-20th, but it seems to have been another several thousand.

In other words, after the Japanese ceased most resistance and over the process of days. As I said, the initial landings in Korea saw only saw a few hundred guys come off largely just the torpedo boats. It's rather easy to make a landing when it's not opposed, after all.

The landing of the tanks took place in two waves on August 15 and 17th. The first wave unloaded while the port was only partially in Soviet hands. Only in the second wave were the port facilities were in Soviet hands by that time, and even then only because they had been seized by force by the Soviets and they received no cooperation from the Japanese. Word of the Japanese surrender was only just starting to reach the Japanese forces in the region and most didn't accept it as genuine for several more days.

Actually, as BobTheBarbarian has pointed out in the past resistance in the region largely and quickly did come to an end with the Imperial rescript and thus attempting to compare Post-Surrender landings to what would've occurred in a combat situation is a non-starter.

The Korean landings involved two of the destroyers. I'm still trying to find out what the cruisers were doing.

I can only find reference to one and funnily enough, when they needed additional firepower, they brought in minesweepers not more destroyers; that's very telling. All of this ignores that the Soviets didn't have a naval gunfire doctrine like the Anglo-Americans either.

Yes, obviously. That's why I'm positing a successful Soviet operation as merely a possibility, not an inevitability. We don't know have any evidence involving how active Tokyo was being in regards to a Soviet threat to Hokkaido specifically nor how well Soviet intentions would be picked up on by the Japanese: they already had badly misread Soviet intentions and capabilities in the run-up to the invasion of Manchuria, after all, despite receiving plenty of indications otherwise. Hell, the landing on Shumshu managed to take them by surprise despite the Soviet invasion force having to sail right by the relatively strong Japanese garrison at Wakkanai. That's part of my point in terms of the uncertainty here. My position is not that a Soviet invasion would succeed, only that it might and whether it does depends on what happens in the intervening time.

It's only a possibility if you accept that the Japanese do absolutely nothing for months which is, again, a non-starter. As Bob has also pointed out to you in the past, they didn't misread Soviet intentions with regards to Manchuria and the Kwantung Army was in the process of preparing for exactly what was coming; many in the Japanese cabinet also realized how ridiculous the diplomatic play with Moscow was.

As for Shumshu, you're ignoring that the defenders achieved a 1.5 to 1 ration in losses, meaning the 87th was destined to be annihilated. Now consider that and realize there was three railways on Hokkaido, 100,000 Japanese troops and 450 aircraft. Any Soviet landing in 1945 is going to be rapidly and effectively defeated, or, to quote Bob, turn into an Anzio situation.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
Japan isn't all that large. Food was being grown on all the major islands and could be transported by carts hauled by peasants if necessary. It might well require a lot of relocation of people from the cities to the countryside, but that can be done, too. It might not have been possible to sustain the effort indefinitely, but it could be sustained for far longer than the American people would have been willing to maintain a full wartime stance while waiting. After all, it's not like the US could start demobilizing in any meaningful way if they still might have to launch an invasion. The people would have demanded that something be done to finish the war quickly-and the politicians would have agreed to do it.

Really? Gonna feed a industrial city or a coal mine workforce, or an infantry division, with foodstuffs moved by hand?

What are the peasants eating while they're harvesting the crops?

What are they eating when they are pulling their handcarts to market?

What are the draft animals eating? Or have they already been eaten?

Take a look at a map of Japan. It's an archipelago; every city worth the name is on the water, and the USN could get to all of them in 1945-46.
 
Shore batteries might have been destroyed, but the Soviets were out up to 2,400 dead/missing and 1,000 wounded on the first day alone (they had less than 10,000 men overall). The entire island of Shumshu (let alone Paramushiro) was fortified ala Iwo Jima and between them there were over 20,000 fanatical defenders. For their part, Japanese casualties (according to their own records) numbered roughly 600, of whom 200 were dead or missing. In other words, the Soviets would have run out of manpower in short order.

Total Japanese strength on Shumshu was 8,500 men, with Paramushiro dealing with it's own Soviet landing by the 101st Rifle Division that was occurring at the same time (which there unfortunately doesn't seem to be much information on, it'd be interesting to compare and contrast the two, as well as the landings which were apparently resisted on Kunashir and Shikotan), and the Soviets suffered 1,567 casualties across the entire battle, not 2,400 at the end of the first day. Shumshu also distinctly lacked the sort of fortified caverns that typified Japanese fortifications on Iwo Jima, so to claim that it was fortified like Iwo Jima is facile. And with the Soviets having a beachhead solidly ashore of some 5-6 kilometers deep, having established contact with their supporting naval and air forces, with a steady flow of heavy arms being unloaded over a pier constructed by Soviet marine engineers, and with most of the available Japanese heavy weapons having already been destroyed, it's likely that the worst of the Soviet casualty rates for Shumshu were already in the past.

Bonus spoilers: I have several projects in-progress that I plan on posting here and on SpaceBattles, this being one of them - on 10 January 1945 the US Army Service Forces published a series of secret plans for large scale operations in Soviet Kamchatka and the northern Kuril Islands, specifically Shumshu and Paramushiro, which I have in their entirety. The conclusion? Just to occupy Shumshu and the northernmost fifth of Paramushiro would require four reinforced divisions with massive air support from Kamchatka and major fleet elements accompanying - 137,500 men, 19,500 vehicles, and hundreds of aircraft. This would entail the creation of not only a brand-new corps headquarters, but also an entirely new air force based out of Alaska and the far eastern USSR.

So in other words, a study by the US Army trying to posit what they themselves would have to use, completely ignoring the differences in methodology, supply demands, and distances between the US and Soviet armed forces. After all, it didn't take the Soviets 137,500 men to actually historically secure Shumshu. I bet according to this study, the Soviets should have been dead in the first few hours of the landing, instead of carving out a secure 4 kilometer deep beachhead in a day and securing a supply line good enough that they could bring in heavy guns after 24 hours.

By that same logic, August Storm by Glantz is likewise invalid as it is a contemporary of Sandusky's work. In the absence of any sort of compelling counter-evidence, I see no reason to doubt Sandusky's description of the situation. Indeed, as @wiking has pointed out before by the time of the Japanese surrender the Red Army's offensive into Manchuria had largely come to a standstill due to logistical difficulties; the use of surrendered Japanese trains to occupy Port Arthur over a week after the surrender, for example.

Well, Glantz's original work is pretty invalid. However, Glantz has written updated editions since then that were published as recently as 2006. And no, the Soviet offensive had not come to a standstill at the time of the Japanese surrender: Soviet forces were still advancing and fighting across the board. Logistical difficulties were mounting and the advance was slowing, but it hadn't yet come to a standstill. With the Japanese abandoning northern and central Manchuria, there wouldn't be much change in the timing of the fall of those parts of the region. But undoubtedly the Soviets would have to pause to rebuild the railroads and stockpile supplies before they embarked on driving the Japanese from the southern redoubts they were falling back on, or perhaps just by-passing and isolating them.

Shumshu also didn't have 450 Japanese aircraft and 100,000 soldiers on it either. Given the VVS was only able to deploy less than 100 aircraft for Shumshu and about 200 for the movement into Korea, I'm content to say the Japanese definitely will have air superiority.

Hokkaido had around 50,000 men, not 100,000. What's more, you keep ignoring that the Japanese having 5-6 times the amount of men is rather offset by them having to cover 200 times the amount of ground. That the VVS only chose to deploy 100 aircraft for Shumshu and 200 for Korea is nonindicative of how much they choose to deploy for Hokkaido, particularly since by the time they do so operations on the mainland would largely be coming to a close and there wouldn't be much other demand for the aircraft to do.

In other words, after the Japanese ceased most resistance and over the process of days. As I said, the initial landings in Korea saw only saw a few hundred guys come off largely just the torpedo boats. It's rather easy to make a landing when it's not opposed, after all.

Word did not reach the local Japanese forces until August 16th, the day after the main landing of 5,000 men occurred, so no it was not after most Japanese resistance had ceased. The initial landing on August 14th consisted of 710 men, encountered heavy resistance, and was largely pinned within the port area by the time the main landing began the next day, which was done under fire. The bulk of the city was taken during the course of the day, but holdouts persisted on the outskirts. Then the Japanese forces started to cease to resist.

Actually, as BobTheBarbarian has pointed out in the past resistance in the region largely and quickly did come to an end with the Imperial rescript and thus attempting to compare Post-Surrender landings to what would've occurred in a combat situation is a non-starter.

I can only find reference to one and funnily enough, when they needed additional firepower, they brought in minesweepers not more destroyers; that's very telling.

I've got one at the outset, plus another one brought in on August 16th along with an additional 2 minesweepers, 2 transports, and a patrol boat. No indication they preferred one or the other in the amphibious landing on Korea, although apparently there they were effective enough to knock out a Japanese armored train. For Shumshu, the bulk of fire support was actually provided by nearby coastal guns on the Kamchatka perimeter.

All of this ignores that the Soviets didn't have a naval gunfire doctrine like the Anglo-Americans either.

Sure, largely because their doctrine shunned the sort of assaults that required it.

[It's only a possibility if you accept that the Japanese do absolutely nothing for months which is, again, a non-starter.

So you claim, but we don't have any evidence that the Japanese perceived any threat to Hokkaido one way or the other. We also don't have any evidence to the inverse, mind you, but that still rather leaves things rather more up in the air then you are positing. For all we know, the Japanese might discount an amphibious threat against the islands and persist in their plans pulling forces out of Hokkaido to buff up Kyushu and Honshu.

As Bob has also pointed out to you in the past, they didn't misread Soviet intentions with regards to Manchuria and the Kwantung Army was in the process of preparing for exactly what was coming; many in the Japanese cabinet also realized how ridiculous the diplomatic play with Moscow was.

The leaders who pinned their hopes on convincing the Soviets to mediate (and the number of those were much more considerable then you are claiming) misread how willing the Soviets were in doing so and the leaders who recognized the Soviets were going to attack misread when and how the Soviets were going to strike (the western thrust through the took the Japanese leadership completely off-guard). So yes, the Japanese very much misread Soviet intentions, as well as Soviet capabilities.

As for Shumshu, you're ignoring that the defenders achieved a 1.5 to 1 ration in losses, meaning the 87th was destined to be annihilated.

As I've observed before: loss ratios mean fuck all. The battle may not have been concluded at the time the Japanese garrison surrendered, but all signs clearly point to it turning in the Soviets favor and the Soviets could bring reinforcements in at any time they choose, so the assertion the Soviet forces were destined to destruction is without basis.

Now consider that and realize there was three railways on Hokkaido, 100,000 Japanese troops and 450 aircraft.

Where did the extra 50,000 troops come from? Where are they on Hokkaido when the Soviets land and where are the Soviets landing? Why has the planned American bombing campaign to destroy Japan's rail bridge and tunnel network apparently suddenly decided to skip Hokkaido? Where is the fuel for those 450 aircraft coming from?
 
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Total Japanese strength on Shumshu was 8,500 men, with Paramushiro dealing with it's own Soviet landing by the 101st Rifle Division that was occurring at the same time (which there unfortunately doesn't seem to be much information on, it'd be interesting to compare and contrast the two, as well as the landings which were apparently resisted on Kunashir and Shikotan), and the Soviets suffered 1,567 casualties across the entire battle, not 2,400 at the end of the first day. Shumshu also distinctly lacked the sort of fortified caverns that typified Japanese fortifications on Iwo Jima, so to claim that it was fortified like Iwo Jima is facile. And with the Soviets having a beachhead solidly ashore of some 5-6 kilometers deep, having established contact with their supporting naval and air forces, with a steady flow of heavy arms being unloaded over a pier constructed by Soviet marine engineers, and with most of the available Japanese heavy weapons having already been destroyed, it's likely that the worst of the Soviet casualty rates for Shumshu were already in the past.

From p. 82 of "Kamchatka in the Years of the Great Patriotic War":

"Большой солдатской кровью полита эта северная и скалистая земля. По архивным данным, с нашей стороны было убито 845 человек, (без военных моряков) и вместе со скончавшимися от ран 1576 человек, свыше 1000 - ранено, с японской: убитых - 234, пропало без вести -239 человек, и 545 - ранено."

"This rocky, northern land was watered by the blood of many soldiers. By archival data, from our side there were 845 people killed (excluding military seamen) together with those who died from their wounds - 1,576 people. More than 1,000 were wounded; with the Japanese: killed - 234, missing - 239, and 545 - wounded."
The one bit of this translation I am shaky on is whether the author, Aleksandr Nikolaev, meant to say that 1,576 died from their wounds or that the killed together with those who died of wounds totalled 1,576.
Japanese sources place their casualties at about 191 killed and 409 wounded. Apparently, the original claims of 1,018 Japanese and 1,567 Soviet casualties came from Izvestiya and likely have little basis in reality. Given Russia's track record even the above numbers might be suspect, though they are in line with Japanese claims of the damage inflicted on the opponent.*

Furthermore, Shumshu and the rest of the Northern Kuriles had been owned by the Empire of Japan since 1875. Like Iwo it was strongly fortified: According to Soviet inspectors there were 34 permanent fire points (DOTs - concrete and steel), 24 earthen bunkers, 310 enclosed machine gun nests, and numerous shelters and staging points up to 50 meters underground. All of them were interconnected by tunnels as at Iwo and elsewhere.

Also, there were no Soviet landings on Paramushiro prior to 23 August, which was done as part of the acceptance of the Japanese surrender. Some level of fighting continued after midday on the 19th, but it was at that point when negotiations began. I have no information at present about Shikotan and Kunashiro.

*For more archival weirdness, p. 22 of this source ("Our Kuriles") states that in the liberation of South Sakhalin and the Kuriles, "not less" than 2,153 died, of whom at least 962 were killed in the Kuriles, mostly at Shumshu.

So in other words, a study by the US Army trying to posit what they themselves would have to use, completely ignoring the differences in methodology, supply demands, and distances between the US and Soviet armed forces. After all, it didn't take the Soviets 137,500 men to actually historically secure Shumshu. I bet according to this study, the Soviets should have been dead in the first few hours of the landing, instead of carving out a secure 4 kilometer deep beachhead in a day and securing a supply line good enough that they could bring in heavy guns after 24 hours.

I don't think that differences in doctrine could account for a 12-fold difference in numbers and much more in equipment . . .
The Americans were the masters of amphibious warfare in those days, the Soviets, well, weren't. They knew what it would take to seize the northern Kuriles, and the Soviets didn't have it. After all, the Soviets didn't secure Shumshu in the traditional military sense. They fought for a day, got torn up, and then the opponent surrendered for unrelated reasons. The Marines always established beachheads in the first day too, the hard part was taking the rest of the island after that...

Even in this case though, like Gnechko's force, the US invasion would have been based out of Kamchatka and Alaska rather than launched across the Pacific; prior to this, southern Kamchatka would be occupied by the United States and turned into a massive airbase with another 100,000+ men present. (This paper also estimated Japanese capacities for reinforcement as up to 7 additional divisions by D+30, contingent on their willingness to commit the major part of their surface fleet in support.)
 
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Really? Gonna feed a industrial city or a coal mine workforce, or an infantry division, with foodstuffs moved by hand?

What are the peasants eating while they're harvesting the crops?

What are they eating when they are pulling their handcarts to market?

What are the draft animals eating? Or have they already been eaten?

Take a look at a map of Japan. It's an archipelago; every city worth the name is on the water, and the USN could get to all of them in 1945-46.
Dave I suggest you take a look at the Siege of Leningrad for an example of what people can do and what they can endure, even with an enemy shooting at them from only a few miles away. The original post simply asked how long Japan could have continued to resist if the Americans neither invaded nor used the atomic bomb. I contend that they could have resisted for longer than the Americans would have been willing to wait. Not forever, but for quite a while.
 
Dave I suggest you take a look at the Siege of Leningrad for an example of what people can do and what they can endure, even with an enemy shooting at them from only a few miles away. The original post simply asked how long Japan could have continued to resist if the Americans neither invaded nor used the atomic bomb. I contend that they could have resisted for longer than the Americans would have been willing to wait. Not forever, but for quite a while.

You still have not addressed the issue of chemical weapons, which would have destroy the crops. Not to mention the possible toxicity against human. Also, the Japan rice crop of 1945 failed.

Moreover, it is possible to destroy Japanese resistance by further firebombing of smaller settlements and transport infrastructure.

Starvation need not be a passive process and both Japan and USA had not signed the relevant Geneva Convention that ban chemical warfare.

Do not forget that Leningrad was not completely isolated thanks to the Road of Life on Lake Ladoga.
 
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As the Americans and British found out in Europe this is a lot easier said than done. Despite endless bombing they never managed to completely shut down the German railways, or wreck all their factory production, or starve or crack the will of the civilian population or smash the economy. German military production kept increasing until Allied and Russian armies actually began to capture the factories. The Japanese would probably prove just as resilient.

It is exactly by studying the strategic bombing campaign against Germany that we know that Japan would not resist for long (where "long" means more than some 6-8 months).

Sure, the Germans continued producing (though one should be careful as to the output growth; don't believe everything Speer will tell you under this respect). Naturally, they were still receiving iron ore from Sweden throughout 1944. They had many other raw materials available nationally, and had stockpiled things like nickel from Finland. Once they lost Ploesti (whose output, anyway, had indeed gone badly down through aerial bombing), they still had synth oil fuel plants. They received aluminium from Italy until the winter of 1944. Rubber, see the point above about chemical production.
So what was the Japanese situation as to raw materials? I mean, raw materials produced right there in the home islands, because anything coming from Manchuria or other places is no longer arriving cause the USN.

Naturally, the German factories were badly hit, but they more or less survived thanks to two factors: decentralization and burrowing. Decentralization had its down sides, of course; by the spring of 1945 you had fighter fuselages in location A and their engines in location B, and even though the rail traffic had not been completely stopped, it was bad enough that the two did not get to be put together. And key production was taking place underground.
So what was the Japanese situation as to these factory defense measures?

Then, of course, German cities had had years of time and of intense preparations to withstand air attacks that had grown slowly and steadily in tonnage. Most German houses had a cellar, most German city blocks had an underground shelter, Berlin had an underground traffic network, etc. The Germans had invested resource and money in damage control and such.
So what was the Japanese situation under these respects?

Then, some cities are more vulnerable than others to firestorms and to city-wide fires. The historic centers of some German cities had been razed chiefly because they were built in timber. And old narrow streets had palyed a part too. But more modern cities, like Berlin, with its brick and stone buildings and its wide boulevards, were less vulnerable.
So what were Japanese cities built of?

Then, the German air defense had been truly broken only in the summer of 1944, in daylight, by the USAAF, and made irrelevant at night by the RAF only in the winter of 1944. Even so, even in the spring of 1945 they could still mount last-ditch disturbances.
What was the opposition the US aircraft were meeting in the air by mid 1945? Keep in mind that the Japanese cannot rule out a landing, so they will keep stashing fuel and aircraft away for that day.

Then, the Germans had eaten relatively well all the way to mid 1944, simply by starving other countries. By the winter of 1944, they weren't eating all that better than many other Europeans, and come the summer of 1945, fortunately for them they were no longer relying solely on their internal food production. And at no time the Allies seriously considered attacking crops and farming, even though they had plans for that.
What would be the Japanese situation under this respect? Ah, BTW, the other mainstay in the kitchen apart from rice is probably fish. But no fishing any more, naturally, not with the Allies blockading the isles.

I think I could go on.
 
You still have not addressed the issue of chemical weapons, which would have destroy the crops. Not to mention the possible toxicity against human. Also, the Japan rice crop of 1945 failed.

Moreover, it is possible to destroy Japanese resistance by further firebombing of smaller settlements and transport infrastructure.

Starvation need not be a passive process and both Japan and USA had not signed the relevant Geneva Convention that ban chemical warfare.

Do not forget that Leningrad was not completely isolated thanks to the Road of Life on Lake Ladoga.
The chemical campaign to destroy the crops would take at bare minimum at least a year to be put into operation. These things can't happen quickly. And there would be pushback from a lot of sources. The air force would object to using the VT (proximity fuse) in the bombs (which would be needed for an airburst which would be the most effective) because that would guarantee the Japanese capturing some intact. And eventually someone would ask: "What happens if we use these things and destroy the Japanese crops and then they do surrender? How are we going to feed all those people?" Because once they surrendered it WOULD be our responsibility to feed them. This is a lot harder than you think.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
Dave I suggest you take a look at the Siege of Leningrad for an example of what people can do and what they can endure, even with an enemy shooting at them from only a few miles away. The original post simply asked how long Japan could have continued to resist if the Americans neither invaded nor used the atomic bomb. I contend that they could have resisted for longer than the Americans would have been willing to wait. Not forever, but for quite a while.

You still have not addressed the issue of chemical weapons, which would have destroy the crops. Not to mention the possible toxicity against human. Also, the Japan rice crop of 1945 failed. Moreover, it is possible to destroy Japanese resistance by further firebombing of smaller settlements and transport infrastructure. Starvation need not be a passive process and both Japan and USA had not signed the relevant Geneva Convention that ban chemical warfare. Do not forget that Leningrad was not completely isolated thanks to the Road of Life on Lake Ladoga.

And Leningrad was one city of, presumably, a few million by the time the siege was lifted. Japan was an island nation of tens of millions, under air and naval blockade of an intensity that has never been repeated.
 
The chemical campaign to destroy the crops would take at bare minimum at least a year to be put into operation. These things can't happen quickly. And there would be pushback from a lot of sources. The air force would object to using the VT (proximity fuse) in the bombs (which would be needed for an airburst which would be the most effective) because that would guarantee the Japanese capturing some intact. And eventually someone would ask: "What happens if we use these things and destroy the Japanese crops and then they do surrender? How are we going to feed all those people?" Because once they surrendered it WOULD be our responsibility to feed them. This is a lot harder than you think.

Aren’t you arguing that the Japanese won’t surrender unless their agriculture is completely destroyed? If so, it follows that doing that is necessary even if it makes the subsequent occupation harder.
 
Because the fall of Hokkaido is not going to cause Japan to surrender and it would a waste of military effort.

Well neither did the invasion of Okinawa. However, (if you accept the alleged ease of a Soviet invasion), Hokkaido would have been a far easier endeavor, provided a much larger staging/strike area, and put a thumb in uncle Joes eye.

Ric350
 
Well neither did the invasion of Okinawa. However, (if you accept the alleged ease of a Soviet invasion), Hokkaido would have been a far easier endeavor, provided a much larger staging/strike area, and put a thumb in uncle Joes eye.

Ric350

I suppose that’s another point in favor of not invading Kyushu or Honshu. The Allies could continue chipping away at the periphery by taking Hokkaido, Korea, helping mop up the IJA in China, all at a much lower cost than Downfall, and avoid the appearance of doing nothing.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
I suppose that’s another point in favor of not invading Kyushu or Honshu. The Allies could continue chipping away at the periphery by taking Hokkaido, Korea, helping mop up the IJA in China, all at a much lower cost than Downfall, and avoid the appearance of doing nothing.

Of course, if the Japanese were kind enough to put all their eggs into the Kyushu basket, given the strength of the USN carrier forces and tactical air power based on the Bonins, Ryukyus, and - potentially - the Izus - then the Sixth Army could have been switched to Kujūkuri on Honshu, even in 1945. Given the precedent of the decision to move up the Leyte invasion in 1944, rather than go after Mindanao first, it's not impossible.
 
I suppose that’s another point in favor of not invading Kyushu or Honshu. The Allies could continue chipping away at the periphery by taking Hokkaido, Korea, helping mop up the IJA in China, all at a much lower cost than Downfall, and avoid the appearance of doing nothing.
But that could take another year or more. And it was most definitely NOT the American way of doing things :) In Europe the Americans argued with the British for two years against this sort of peripheral strategy and wanted the direct approach of the cross-channel invasion. In the Pacific they were calling all the shots and there was tremendous pressure from home to end the war as quickly as possible. Striking at Japan was the way to do that, even though it would be enormously expensive.
 
But that could take another year or more. And it was most definitely NOT the American way of doing things :) In Europe the Americans argued with the British for two years against this sort of peripheral strategy and wanted the direct approach of the cross-channel invasion. In the Pacific they were calling all the shots and there was tremendous pressure from home to end the war as quickly as possible. Striking at Japan was the way to do that, even though it would be enormously expensive.

Those would be some interesting domestic political discussions.

“Yes, Mr. Congressman, I’d rather my son come home next month in a body bag than alive and well in a year or two. Get him got already!”
 
Those would be some interesting domestic political discussions.

“Yes, Mr. Congressman, I’d rather my son come home next month in a body bag than alive and well in a year or two. Get him got already!”
Except the conversation would actually be: "Hey there Mr. Citizen, we can have your son sit around in a camp or in a ship for another two years in hopes that the Japanese surrender. But if they still don't we'll have to invade anyway and by then your NEXT son will be old enough to serve and we'll take him, too just in case. Or, we can attack and finish this NOW. Which would you prefer? Oh, and did I mention the taxes we'll need you to pay if we keep this war going...?"
 
My uncle served in Europe and was anxious to get home once Germany surrendered. One of the books I have on Downfall mentions the criteria reviewed for soldiers going home versus getting sent to the Pacific. I went through it with him and told him "congratulations, you're going to Japan!" He said "F*ck NO!", he'd done his service and wasn't about to do more. I think a lot of the ETO soldiers being forced to the Pacific were going to feel the same way...
 
Where did the extra 50,000 troops come from? Where are they on Hokkaido when the Soviets land and where are the Soviets landing? Why has the planned American bombing campaign to destroy Japan's rail bridge and tunnel network apparently suddenly decided to skip Hokkaido? Where is the fuel for those 450 aircraft coming from?

Before we go any further, this part made me want to ask you that you are aware the post I responded to was postulating an invasion around August 25th, yes?
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
My uncle served in Europe and was anxious to get home once Germany surrendered. One of the books I have on Downfall mentions the criteria reviewed for soldiers going home versus getting sent to the Pacific. I went through it with him and told him "congratulations, you're going to Japan!" He said "F*ck NO!", he'd done his service and wasn't about to do more. I think a lot of the ETO soldiers being forced to the Pacific were going to feel the same way...

Well, first, if they had the requisite points, they weren't "forced."

That being said, in the US mobilization for WW II, the term of service was "the duration plus six months. "The duration" was of the war, not a given campaign, front, or theater; lessons dating back to WW I and the Civil War had made that abundantly clear.
 
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