The Atomic Dud: Without the Bomb, would the U.S. have bombed-and-blockaded? Invaded Kyushu? Or would it have shifted OLYMPIC to Northern Honshu?

[BobTheBarbarian]

There's practically no timeline in this account, leaving it totally unclear which engagement it is talking about, but there's a bunch of factors to suggest it's not talking about what I'm talking about. First, it was aimed at Soviet positions at Mt. Shirei further south, whereas the action I was talking about occurred at Cape Kokucan, on the northern tip of the island. Second, the reference to thick fog would indicate this action occurred on the morning of the 18th, rather than that of the 19th, which was clear. Thirdly, every source agrees that by the end of the 18th Soviet beachhead had consolidated to a width of 4 kilometers and a depth of 5 kilometers - putting the Soviets right back at Mt Shire. The map I found below makes this rather clear: you can see this attack towards and where it ended, tand you can see the Soviets push back against it (the second, more southernly red line is where the Soviets were at both at the start of the attack and by the end of the 18th).

A more minor, pedantic note is that the accounts description of the attack also seems a bit confused spacially: if the 283rd Battalion was to the right of the 11th tank regiment attacking the Soviet forces near Mt Shirei, that would have placed them as striking the Soviets left flank (and the map below seems to confirm this). Perhaps there was some confusion in the drafting of the monograph about whose right flank this was. The consolidation of the beachhead I discussed above also meant the Soviets right flank on the morning of the 19th was the Sea of Okhotsk, so that's another point against this attack taking place on the 19th. The Japanese couldn't have physically attacked it on the morning of the 19th, at least not without drowning first.

The map also disputes how much of the 74th brigade had managed to cross. It indicates that only two battalions (including the 288th, which explains why it didn't take part in the attack on the 18th: it wasn't even on the island yet!) and the headquarters managed to make it across the channel, with a third battalion still sailing up on the 19th. So the monograph basically hyperfocuses on a single action where the Japanese managed to gain ground, exaggerates the success, ignores it's reversal, and skips over everything that happened after it.

"Mt. Shirei" (171 m) is correctly labeled on the north end of the island near cape Kokutan. The counterattack, like the majority of the battle itself, took place on the 18th. It can also be inferred pretty clearly from the narrative what happened: at 1600 hours on the 18th, the 91st Division received a direct order from the 5th Area Army to surrender. After this, the Japanese broke contact and pulled back, which allowed the Soviets to land more forces and consolidate their beachhead. All out resistance basically ended after 4:00 pm on the 18th.

What's unusual about this map is the absence of at least one infantry battalion. According to Leland Ness, the 73rd brigade comprised the 282nd through 287th battalions while the 74th Brigade comprised the 288th through 293rd. While he states that no major changes to the 91st division OOB took place, the Monograph mentions two battalions transferred to Hokkaido, which still leaves one unaccounted for. Additionally, this map makes the impression that the 292nd Battalion crossed over to Shumshu on the 19th, which may not be accurate (the boats shown going south represent a civilian evacuation to Hokkaido). Either way, it's clearly stated that during the 18th the main body of the 74th Brigade crossed over before 1600 on 18 August.

Sounds nonsensical. We're supposed to believe that nearly 40% of Russian KIA and a whopping of 76% of Japanese KIA were all concentrated into this single action which lasted only a couple of dozen minutes (it was over by the time the second wave began landing) and the barely anybody else died over the course of the rest of the battle? Maybe those are KIA for the naval infantry and those two Japanese units over the entire battle, rather than that single action. That would be more plausible.

It's possible the Japanese casualties are cumulative. Soviet forces on land suffered 695 killed and missing and 1,199 wounded. Ships' personnel added another 134 killed and missing and 213 wounded - total 2,241 casualties including 829 dead/missing. So 200 dead would only be about 25% of total KIA/MIA, or 28% of deaths during the landing and subsequent battle.

(The commonly cited figure of 1,567 Soviet casualties apparently refers only to the Army land forces - the Pacific Fleet, of which the Marine battalion was a part, also lost 290 dead/missing and 384 hospitalized wounded. In total Soviet forces lost 962 dead and missing during the Kurile islands landings).

Japanese don't have much artillery - all accounts make clear that advantage is decisively on the Soviets side - and their tanks repeatedly proved horribly vulnerable to even obsolete Soviet AT weapons, to the point that most of them had been knocked out by the 19th, so they are not of much value. The Japanese mostly have warm bodies and little else. But it's firepower that kills. If they want to try and zerg rush the Soviet positions, then it'll work out as well as when they did it against the Americans... or when they tried it against the Soviets in Manchuria itself, for that matter.

No they wouldn't have? The 87th was moved out of Manchuria and to Vladivostok around the 11th-12th, two days BEFORE Japan's surrender. It would be available. And while you are correct that while the OTL Kuril landing probably wouldn't have happened, a larger one probably would have been carried out at a later date.

The 91st Division's organic weapons (excluding naval troops) included 8 mountain artillery batteries (32x75mm mountain guns), 4 field artillery batteries (12x unknown caliber, probably 75mm), 8 x 150mm cannon, 16 x 105mm cannon, and 12 x 105mm howitzers. The 10 infantry battalions each had a gun company, which generally meant 2 70mm howitzers each or 20 total. About 100 pieces, not counting an AA group, AT or lighter weapons such as personal mortars, and 60 or so remaining tanks; during the battle only 5 guns were destroyed in combat - 2 field pieces, 1 105mm cannon, 1 150mm cannon, and 1 AA gun. The garrison also had 1.5 Kaisenbun of ammunition on hand, enough for more than a month of intense combat. So the Japanese weren't exactly bereft of fire support.

Again it's an illustration of the discrepancy between the task and the forces and means - as the Soviets would say - available to achieve it. Even with the 87th Rifle Corps, though I doubt they would have made it in time.

In reality, the Soviets still had the 20 undamaged specialised landing vessels, in addition to the larger mass of improvised ships (the divisional artillery was landed on wooden barges). The destruction of the Japanese coastal positions on the night of the 18th/19th left the Japanese in no position to continue to interdict the Soviet landing, as the landing of the divisions heavy artillery on the morning of the 19th neatly demonstrated.

There were two barges and 33 Lend-Lease craft, 35 in total.