WI: Japanese biological attack on occupying U.S. troops post-surrender

The following excerpt is from the Asian Political News (here or here)

The defunct Imperial Japanese Army's germ warfare unit planned to stage germ attacks against U.S. troops in Japan just after Japan's surrender in World War II in August 1945, researchers said Friday, citing a memorandum left by the unit's commander, Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii.

But the germ warfare team, known as Unit 731, gave up the plan after being told by then top commanders of the Imperial Japanese Army, ''Don't die in vain,'' the researchers said.

<snip>

Other fragments of the memorandum include ''American troops arrive (at Sagami Bay near Tokyo) on 25th (of August),'' ''Will scatter (the weapons) across the country,'' and ''personnel and equipment can be transported with sailboats.''

The expressions mean Ishii apparently planned germ attacks against U.S. troops and studied transporting germ warfare personnel and their equipment to Japan, they said.

But entries on Aug. 26, two days before the arrival of an advance team of the U.S. forces, carry instructions from top army generals that say ''Don't die in vain,'' and ''Wait for next opportunity calmly.''

The instructions were issued by Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu and Gen. Torashiro Kawabe, then chief of staff and deputy chief of the Imperial Japanese Army, respectively.

What if the attack was actually carried out?

Given the vagaries of biological warfare, it seems highly likely that no matter how targeted the planning was, attempting such an attack on U.S. occupying forces in Japan would quickly lead to a mass epidemic in Japan (especially given that pandemics spread easily in conditions of chaos or starvation, which closely describe 1945 Japan.)

Although many late-war Japanese plans called for the sacrifice and death of the populace, the fact that this suicidal plan (which would have sacrificed the lives of not just the attackers, but perhaps millions of Japanese civilians) was seriously considered is perhaps illustrative of attitudes at the time.
 
If the attack can be traced back to unit 731, I imagine the Japanese would take a much less revisionist view of WW2, similar to modern Germany, or even more apologetic.
 
The ready-to-suffer-20-million-deaths was not a boast, it was a lucid policy accepted without hesitation by lots of people within Japan political, military and civilian entourages.

This factoid should meditated upon by the Hiroshima-was-a-war-crime propagandists.
 
Could the attacks realistically force the US to evacuate troops? Back then, stopping a biological attack wasn't easy.

For Japan's sake they really had better hope not. The rations post-war were starvation level as it was, without the US supplying food the famine is going to be much, much worse.
 
If the attack can be traced back to unit 731, I imagine the Japanese would take a much less revisionist view of WW2, similar to modern Germany, or even more apologetic.

It's a good point that the attacks probably could not be traced back in the historiography unless a member of the team suffers a crisis of conscience afterwards (probably quite likely.)

The entire concept - of a nation deliberately unleashing epidemic disease upon its own citizens after they've already surrendered just to kill a few foreign soldiers - is so ludicrous to our conception that this would belong in ASB if it were not an actual seriously-considered plan that apparently almost took place IOTL.

Moreover, given the starvation and chaos sweeping 1945-era Japan, epidemics sweeping the nation would not be surprising to anyone. Even if the source of the pathogens were traced back to Unit 731, the automatic assumption by others would be that the outbreak was an accident caused by the chaos of the conditions.

Charles Rexroad will be putting in a lot of overtime.

Well, that presumes that the U.S. can track down the desired war criminals in chaotic epidemic/starvation-filled conditions, and that they haven't already died from disease themselves.

Could the attacks realistically force the US to evacuate troops? Back then, stopping a biological attack wasn't easy.

I guess the political dilemma the U.S. would face in the short term would be whether to pull out its occupying troops in the short term (and let Japan self-immolate), or whether to send in full aid, accepting the inevitable casualties among occupation forces and personnel and hoping that resultant goodwill would make up for it.

I'm guessing they'd do the latter, though there'd be strong voices in favor of the former at home.
 
The entire concept - of a nation deliberately unleashing epidemic disease upon its own citizens after they've already surrendered just to kill a few foreign soldiers - is so ludicrous to our conception that this would belong in ASB if it were not an actual seriously-considered plan that apparently almost took place IOTL.

Thought that should be present in the mind of anybody shooting down merciless plans as "conspiracy theories".
 
Moreover, given the starvation and chaos sweeping 1945-era Japan, epidemics sweeping the nation would not be surprising to anyone. Even if the source of the pathogens were traced back to Unit 731, the automatic assumption by others would be that the outbreak was an accident caused by the chaos of the conditions.
Unit 731 was based in Harbin, so there's really no way this could be seen as an 'accidental release'.
 
It's a good point that the attacks probably could not be traced back in the historiography unless a member of the team suffers a crisis of conscience afterwards (probably quite likely.)

The entire concept - of a nation deliberately unleashing epidemic disease upon its own citizens after they've already surrendered just to kill a few foreign soldiers - is so ludicrous to our conception that this would belong in ASB if it were not an actual seriously-considered plan that apparently almost took place IOTL.

Moreover, given the starvation and chaos sweeping 1945-era Japan, epidemics sweeping the nation would not be surprising to anyone. Even if the source of the pathogens were traced back to Unit 731, the automatic assumption by others would be that the outbreak was an accident caused by the chaos of the conditions.



Well, that presumes that the U.S. can track down the desired war criminals in chaotic epidemic/starvation-filled conditions, and that they haven't already died from disease themselves.



I guess the political dilemma the U.S. would face in the short term would be whether to pull out its occupying troops in the short term (and let Japan self-immolate), or whether to send in full aid, accepting the inevitable casualties among occupation forces and personnel and hoping that resultant goodwill would make up for it.

I'm guessing they'd do the latter, though there'd be strong voices in favor of the former at home.
If somehow the pathogen is carried back to the US by infected soldiers, the US public will be cursing its politicians for not evacuating everything in time.
 
The ready-to-suffer-20-million-deaths was not a boast, it was a lucid policy accepted without hesitation by lots of people within Japan political, military and civilian entourages.

This factoid should meditated upon by the Hiroshima-was-a-war-crime propagandists.

I have always thought of this attitude as paradoxical. Better to admit that yes, Hiroshima was a war crime, but sometimes war crimes are necessary to end a war. This admits to the brutal reality of war.

Another line of thought is yes, Hiroshima was a war crime by today's standards, but not by the standards of the day. War crimes are violations of agreed upon rules of war, created to protect soldiers and civilians on both sides from the idiocy of politicians.

Either line of reasoning has more evidence and rationality than blasting the war crimes proponents as propagandists.
 
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