No Nuke = No Surrender. This has been hashed out many times in the past.
Any attempt to surrender without the prod of Hiroshima & Nagasaki WOULD have failed. Even with the nukes being used there was an almost successful coup attempt made to prevent the Emperor's speech from being broadcast.
Well, no. Hiroshima predates surrender. So does Nagasaki. Absent the Sov declaration of war, I'd expect more of the same, since there was no qualitative difference between nukes & firebombing, from Japan's POV.
From a strategic perspective it may have been better to cut the Philippines off and let them wither, but the fate of the POW's, and more importantly, the Philippine Civilian population after such a strategy is too horrible to consider.
Compared to what actually happened? Really not.
The tactical victories generated at Leyte allowed the strategic island hopping campaign to continue without effective opposition.
The BIG mistake was the attack on Peleliu.
Yeah, a completely unnecessary slaughter. P.I. was needless 5mo delay, tho, & about as many casualties. Plus, P.I. campaign made Iwo/Oki harder: troops bound there were intercepted by Sub Force, & ended up at Iwo/Oki, instead.
BTW, to suggest how
Leyte could've been different: make Spruance commander. He'd destroy Kurita & Ozawa, scoring the greatest victory in the history of naval warfare, & likely to remain so, & we wouldn't still be arguing how big a nitwit Halsey'd been.
The Officer who stated that the Pelelui assault was too far advanced to cancel? Admiral Nimitz.
He also wouldn't support extensive sub minelaying, & insisted on close surveillance of ports by subs. So he's not perfect. He's still a damn sight better than MacArthur, IMO.
It is worth mentioning that McArthur (an officer for whom I have little respect & less love), Nimitz AND Halsey all believed that the Philippines were a crucial location that needed to be taken before the invasion of the Home Islands could be attempted. Dugout Doug may have wanted to go back so he could show "he had returned", but ALL the senior Pacific Commanders, from all Services, agreed that the Philippines had to be taken.
It is. I do wonder, however, how much of that was just to keep MacArthur from going out of his way to f*ck things up. I also wonder how much of the need was a product of previous bad decisions, like not concentrating subs at Pearl, or not giving tankers top priority immediately, or patrolling out of the Aleutians (a total waste of effort, enough to shorten the war about 3mo), or not using minelaying...
it is questionable if the war would have been won faster without McArthur.
It really isn't. Just for a start, there were numerous sub missions into P.I. to deliver a trickle of supplies to his vaunted guerrillas, diverting subs from their primary mission, sinking Japanese merchantmen. There was also the divided command, with subs in Oz, which put the most lucrative patrol area, the Luzon & Formosa Straits, off limits, for fear of fratricide, not to mention Oz-based subs were only about 75% as effective as HI-based boats (as an OTTOMH guess, based on Blair; maybe as low as 50%). Would Wainwright have gotten 7h Fleet, including about 2 dozen fleet boats, for the duration? I doubt it; he wasn't going to be running for President any time soon, & FDR knew it. MacArthur was liable to, if he was Stateside; FDR knew
that, too.