WI No A-bombs dropped on Japan

[phx1138]

If you have the predilection to believe that at this space of years, nothing today is going to change your mind.

No? I've always considered myself willing to change my mind, if the evidence is strong enough.

Check the morgue for the immediate post-Hiroshima edition of US World and New Report

Editors, & readers, of USN&WR weren't running things in either the U.S. nor, more importantly, Japan. From a Japanese POV, there's small difference. Neither are we talking about the "rain of bombs" Truman promised, but two bombs, maybe.

Moreover, that ignores the impact, or potential impact, of famine & freezing on the Japanese public at large.

but it wasn't the "OMG, Russia's in it now, we give, please don't hurt us!" reaction the Soviets liked to pretend

I'm not saying it is. I'm getting this from a Japanese source, not a Sov one (which I'd disbelieve).

According to the Japanese Home Minister/Commander of the Eastern Military District (Tokyo and its environs), they were looking at total economic collapse starting in October 1945, one full month before the start of Olympic. Meaning organic resistance would have been impossible beyond kamikazes and destroying ground forces in detail where they were.

And still, the Japanese Supreme War Council (particularly the diehard generals Sugiyama, Anami, Umezu and Admiral Toyoda) was unimpressed. The IJA was not known for its understanding of logistics and modern (post-WWI) warfare.

Were they, & more importantly was Hirohito, willing to accept incipient revolution?

The OP's point is "WI it isn't used?" If the US goes to Olympic and Coronet w/o employing The Bomb, Truman could face impeachment.

On what grounds? Why the Bomb isn't used hasn't been answered. Does it work? More to the point, I'm not saying Downfall goes ahead; IMO, that was never going to be necessary.

The call would be Truman's. And if we are talking WWII, Chiang's. If Korea, again, no way does Truman order atomic first strikes on China if he won't even conventionally bomb the Yalu River bridges.

Agreed, it would be Truman, & you've answered: no.

The 38th Parallel demarkation was a negotiated line by the Soviets and the Western Allies. If the Soviets try something like that, you might see Austria and Czechoslovakia in NATO.

Not if the Pac War goes longer, but ETO doesn't.

Is the USA a junta style military dictatorship in your eyes? With the commander of SAC getting to launch WWIII with little civilian oversight? Or was Dwight David Eisenhower actually a Strangelovian General Jack D. Ripper?

Yoiu presume no change in the political climate or willingness to use the Bomb. If the Sovs are seen as the kind of threat they were OTL, & there was no/less revulsion over it, does that encourage the U.S. to bomb the SU? Does it make the SU more willing? I'd say it could. Not would--could.

Over what issue? The Berlin Airlift?

IDK, over the Berlin Blockade?

In the event of a US First Strike, the Soviets always had the option of a series of suicide one way missions

Presuming they get through.

*facepalm* Its called deterrence, not "frighten". It was a fringe benefit from having the Bomb, that's all

Not in 1945, it wasn't.

"Let's blow two billion bucks (1942 dollars!) on a gadget that may not even work on scaring our #1 ally ..."

Are you really paying so little attention to what I'm actually saying?

Byrnes waited to see if the damn thing actually worked, & then wanted to use it on Japan to demonstrate what it could do to an actual city, & to demonstrate to the Sovs (frighten them, yes) the U.S. was willing to use it.

Since no one else has said it, I will: The problem with going the "Blockade Route", is that it ignores the fact that the Western Allies were democracies. Whatever the costs, how ever uneconomical the invasion of Japan would be, no way does the Allied leadership tell the people back home that they have decided to sentence the countless numbers of Allied POWs in Japan to certain death, which is what would happen if they are left there without hope of direct rescue. They CANNOT just decide to condemn the heroes of Malaya, Singapore, Burma, Bataan, and Corregidor to die.

So what had they been doing since 1942? Denying a blockade was happening? And I suppose the firebombing of Tokyo was just special effects?

15) By everyone, yes. By the guys with the guns? No. They had The Four Conditions, which only both bombs, the Soviet DoW, and Hirohito's own announcement to his cabinet sufficed to change the minds of the remaining senior IJA generals to obey the Emperor and surrender.

16) They did.

17) Disarmament of the Japanese military was an absolute. It was the Japanese postwar government who no longer wanted an "army", "navy", or "air force".

18) One, only Japan could try their own war criminals. Yeah, right.
Two, only Japan could disarm itself. Yeah, right.
Three, no occupation. Even the Japanese Foreign Minister exploded over the outrageous nature of that condition.
Four, Keep the Emperor. Everyone agreed to that.

AFAIK, the only Allied leaders that demanded Hirohito be arrested and tried as a war criminal were in Canberra.

And you've made my case for me. Japan wanted the Four Conditions, & got the only one they would have kept fighting to get. Neither am I saying Hirohito needed to go on trial, but if the U.S. had demanded his abdication in favor of somebody else (his brother?), do you think the Japanese would have agreed? Or chosen nuclear holocaust? Or famine? Or revolution? My money's on good sense. Hirohito, IMO, ultimately realized he'd created a monster & needed to drive a stake through its heart.

I think it was more a simple matter of letting the Japanese know that Hirohito could stay, privided that he understood that he would be subject to the orders of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, a command soon to be designated for Douglas MacArthur. IIRC, SecState Byrnes referred to it as "One deity answering to another!" The Japanese were able to reason it out as being like unto hoe in pre-Meji times when the Emperor was "subject" to the rule of the Shoguns.

And that is exactly what I was getting at.

 

[John Farson]

Byrnes waited to see if the damn thing actually worked, & then wanted to use it on Japan to demonstrate what it could do to an actual city, & to demonstrate to the Sovs (frighten them, yes) the U.S. was willing to use it.

The Manhattan project was not started to intimidate Stalin. It was started in order to produce weapons that could be used decisively against Nazi Germany.

Once German defeat was imminent, the target was transferred to Japan. If the Bomb could save the life of even one US GI, Marine, Airman or Sailor, then it would be worth it to Truman. The US was not opposed to the Soviets attacking the Japanese. They had wanted it for years, and the agreement had already been made at Tehran and Yalta.

 

[Flubber]

And you've made my case for me.

No, he hasn't.

Japan wanted the Four Conditions, & got the only one they would have kept fighting to get.

No they didn't or, more accurately, they didn't in the manner you assume.

Japan did get to keep the Emperor but they only did so after surrendering unconditionally. It's a subtle point, but one the revisionists continually fail to understand.

One of the usual arguments concerning use of the Bomb goes along the lines of "All they wanted to do was keep the Emperor. We let them keep him, so why didn't we let them know beforehand so they could surrender earlier?" This, of course, ignores, perhaps deliberately, the Allies' overarching war aim of "fixing" the Axis powers so they never would neer be a threat again.

The only thing the Allies "promised" the Axis prior to surrender was that Axis populations wouldn't be killed off and that the nations rebuilt out of the Axis would be allowed enough industry to feed themselves. Everything else was up to the Allies to determine with no input from the Axis.

Prior to Japan's surrender, there were people in the US government who felt the Emperor or an emperor would be needed to be retained after a surrender. However, it was only after Japan's surrender and after the situation on the ground was examined, that the idea was officially adopted. The Allies could have just as easily hung Hirohito and/or abolished the role emperor. The choice was the Allies' alone and Japan's input was of no consequence.

 

[John Farson]

No, he hasn't.



No they didn't or, more accurately, they didn't in the manner you assume.

Japan did get to keep the Emperor but they only did so after surrendering unconditionally. It's a subtle point, but one the revisionists continually fail to understand.

One of the usual arguments concerning use of the Bomb goes along the lines of "All they wanted to do was keep the Emperor. We let them keep him, so why didn't we let them know beforehand so they could surrender earlier?" This, of course, ignores, perhaps deliberately, the Allies' overarching war aim of "fixing" the Axis powers so they never would neer be a threat again.

The only thing the Allies "promised" the Axis prior to surrender was that Axis populations wouldn't be killed off and that the nations rebuilt out of the Axis would be allowed enough industry to feed themselves. Everything else was up to the Allies to determine with no input from the Axis.

Prior to Japan's surrender, there were people in the US government who felt the Emperor or an emperor would be needed to be retained after a surrender. However, it was only after Japan's surrender and after the situation on the ground was examined, that the idea was officially adopted. The Allies could have just as easily hung Hirohito and/or abolished the role emperor. The choice was the Allies' alone and Japan's input was of no consequence.

Also, it wasn't at all sure that even if the institution of emperor was kept that Hirohito would continue as one. Him abdicating in favor of his son was a real possibility, and it was Mac who insisted that he stay on.

 

[LHB]

No. The strategic imbalance in nukes between the USA and the USSR was bad enough as it was. Add on Stalin's genuine abhorrence for nukes (based on his inability to absolutely control the outcome of the usage), and a Soviet First Strike really isn't in the cards.

I'm not arguing Stalin would be free in using nuclear warheads but rather if HE knows he has one and the US has NOT demonstrated to the world they have one that changes a lot of the military and political calculus for the USSR. In situations like the Berlin Blockade he might be willing to pursue somewhat riskier gambits due to this change in the circumstances.

 

[The Red]

I really don't see the Japanese surrendering because of the invasion of Manchuria alone. By mid 1945 Japanese strategy, if you can call it that, was to bleed the US forces when they landed and use the USSR as diplomatic conduit for a negotiated peace. The invasion killed off one part of that plan but the Japanese would still have clung to the hope of inflicting heavy enough casualties on the US to force a negotiated peace.

The problem with this is that the Soviets had completely undone that plan by their invasions of Manchuria and Sakhalin. First it meant that their empire in China, the basis of which they'd attacked the western powers over, was lost. Though it's disputed as to whether or not the Japanese knew that the Kwantung Army was collapsing in the face of the Soviet invasion, they would have known that there was no way in the long term that they could hold back the Soviets regardless. Secondly, it meant that from the north they were entirely exposed, even if they could repel the Americans from Kyushu, there was nothing to hold back the Soviets from taking Hokkaido, and then Honshu. Thirdly that would mean the occupation of Japan not by a liberal democracy, but from an even worse threat, Socialism. Stalin's socialism, which would quite happily execute the Emperor after, at best, a quick mock trial, and then go on to impose the type of regime they were already establishing in Eastern Europe. This was truly a nightmare for those left in control of Japan, one worse than American occupation, thus it's enitrely rational that they would have acquiesced to that lesser evil.

 

[MerryPrankster]

I believe the Emperor had two surrender messages, one to the Army and one to the Navy. One referenced the A-Bomb, the other referenced the Soviet invasion.

Based on that, I'm willing to share credit. The Bomb From Hell AND the Soviets getting involved is a nice one-two for the Empire of Japan.

 

[sloreck]

Assuming the bomb is not dropped in August, 1945 and Olympic/Coronet not instituted & you have a "blockade" strategy Japan can hold hold at least part way in to the winter of 45/46. The Japanese High Command that was planning to sacrifice civilians (including women and children) attacking invaders with spears and rolling under tanks with explosives strapped to their back, will be more than willing to sacrifice these "useless mouths" to starvation as the blockade bites harder and harder. Since the war will be going on, the Japanese will be (fanatically) resisting the Russians as they advance through Manchuria and in to Korea (btw going across the Yalu and down the Korean Peninsula is not easy for heavy armored forces) so it will probably be some time in November at least for the Russians to get all the way south. Of course, even when they get there they will have a hard time jumping across the strait to Japan for any number of reasons.
My point is the preponderance of the evidence shows that it will take a cataclysmic event to get the Japanese to surrender - whether the bombs, mass starvation threatening to destroy Japanese civilization (which would not occur until winter at the soonest), or a successful invasion of Honshu. Therefore I expect the war would drag on to the winter of 45/46 - with the Russians taking over all of Korea.
I expect that even if the bomb is delayed for this period of time it will be tested, and probably produced, although most likely in smaller numbers. This will have major effects as, absent the theory of atomic bomb trumping all the USA will need to keep larger conventional forces in response to the beginning of the Cold War. It is possible the separation of the Air Force is delayed or goes down differently, certainly Louis Johnson's pro-USAF/strategic (atomic) bombing actions won't happen & you see the USS United States built. Stalin is still as risk averse as ever but absent the practical demonstration of atomic weapons he may be more aggressive with the Berlin blockade/airlift or in Korea. either could lead to a WWIII.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Say there's no Bomb and the Soviet invasion by itself isn't enough. The post-war survey suggested Japan would have surrendered due to bombing/blockade by Nov. 1 and by the end of the year at the latest.

What might happen in the meantime?

I saw one counterfactual online suggesting that if the British landed in northern Malaya and marched toward Singapore as planned, the Japanese would tried to give Singapore the Manila treatment.

If Singapore is devastated in a fight between the British and Japanese or the Japanese recognize they can't hold it and decide to straight-up kill everyone out of spite, that could have some MAJOR effects in Asia in the near-term.

Perhaps Singapore ends up part of Malaysia?

 

[usertron2020]

No? I've always considered myself willing to change my mind, if the evidence is strong enough.

Editors, & readers, of USN&WR weren't running things in either the U.S. nor, more importantly, Japan. From a Japanese POV, there's small difference. Neither are we talking about the "rain of bombs" Truman promised, but two bombs, maybe.

Moreover, that ignores the impact, or potential impact, of famine & freezing on the Japanese public at large.

I'm not saying it is. I'm getting this from a Japanese source, not a Sov one (which I'd disbelieve).

Were they, & more importantly was Hirohito, willing to accept incipient revolution?

On what grounds? Why the Bomb isn't used hasn't been answered. Does it work? More to the point, I'm not saying Downfall goes ahead; IMO, that was never going to be necessary.

Agreed, it would be Truman, & you've answered: no.

Not if the Pac War goes longer, but ETO doesn't.

Yoiu presume no change in the political climate or willingness to use the Bomb. If the Sovs are seen as the kind of threat they were OTL, & there was no/less revulsion over it, does that encourage the U.S. to bomb the SU? Does it make the SU more willing? I'd say it could. Not would--could.

IDK, over the Berlin Blockade?

Presuming they get through.

Not in 1945, it wasn't.

Are you really paying so little attention to what I'm actually saying?

Byrnes waited to see if the damn thing actually worked, & then wanted to use it on Japan to demonstrate what it could do to an actual city, & to demonstrate to the Sovs (frighten them, yes) the U.S. was willing to use it.

So what had they been doing since 1942? Denying a blockade was happening? And I suppose the firebombing of Tokyo was just special effects?

And you've made my case for me. Japan wanted the Four Conditions, & got the only one they would have kept fighting to get. Neither am I saying Hirohito needed to go on trial, but if the U.S. had demanded his abdication in favor of somebody else (his brother?), do you think the Japanese would have agreed? Or chosen nuclear holocaust? Or famine? Or revolution? My money's on good sense. Hirohito, IMO, ultimately realized he'd created a monster & needed to drive a stake through its heart.

And that is exactly what I was getting at.

I notice you deleted most of my factual posts that supported my points, making the rest seem weak and unsupportable. Can't you just admit that maybe we agree on quite a bit of this, disagree on other matters, and are not going to come to a meeting of the minds on what separates us?

And you completely ignored the central concept of what that US News & World Report story truly represented: The absolute unholy terror the Japanese people believed in their own minds what they faced in those seven days between the 7th and 14th of August. There was no way to run a functioning nation when your entire urban population could be sent running to their slit trenches in terror at the appearance of just ONE SINGLE B-29! The Japanese will see economic collapse far sooner than October 1st under these terrible circumstances.

Oh, and yes. The Japanese Supreme War Council DID consider during their decision to surrender the likelihood of a domestic Communist Revolution if they tried to fight on in the face of everything as of August 9th. One of the few times the generals had a correct political observation.

 

[usertron2020]

Also, it wasn't at all sure that even if the institution of emperor was kept that Hirohito would continue as one. Him abdicating in favor of his son was a real possibility, and it was Mac who insisted that he stay on.

I've never seen much beyond pure Anti-Mac pathology that has seriously criticized his rule of Japan. Its hard to argue with success.

I'm not arguing Stalin would be free in using nuclear warheads but rather if HE knows he has one and the US has NOT demonstrated to the world they have one that changes a lot of the military and political calculus for the USSR. In situations like the Berlin Blockade he might be willing to pursue somewhat riskier gambits due to this change in the circumstances.

Um, considering that the Soviet Bomb was a US copy, he certainly knows all about the US program, so...no. The USSR was still in no shape for actual military confrontations with the West. Berlin was more a constabulary matter than anything.

The problem with this is that the Soviets had completely undone that plan by their invasions of Manchuria and Sakhalin. First it meant that their empire in China, the basis of which they'd attacked the western powers over, was lost. Though it's disputed as to whether or not the Japanese knew that the Kwantung Army was collapsing in the face of the Soviet invasion, they would have known that there was no way in the long term that they could hold back the Soviets regardless. Secondly, it meant that from the north they were entirely exposed, even if they could repel the Americans from Kyushu, there was nothing to hold back the Soviets from taking Hokkaido, and then Honshu. Thirdly that would mean the occupation of Japan not by a liberal democracy, but from an even worse threat, Socialism. Stalin's socialism, which would quite happily execute the Emperor after, at best, a quick mock trial, and then go on to impose the type of regime they were already establishing in Eastern Europe. This was truly a nightmare for those left in control of Japan, one worse than American occupation, thus it's enitrely rational that they would have acquiesced to that lesser evil.

Agreed with all. Add on the political effects of famine, more atomic bombings, more B-29 raids, and Olympic, and civilian unrest almost becomes inevitable.

Assuming the bomb is not dropped in August, 1945 and Olympic/Coronet not instituted & you have a "blockade" strategy Japan can hold hold at least part way in to the winter of 45/46. The Japanese High Command that was planning to sacrifice civilians (including women and children) attacking invaders with spears and rolling under tanks with explosives strapped to their back, will be more than willing to sacrifice these "useless mouths" to starvation as the blockade bites harder and harder. Since the war will be going on, the Japanese will be (fanatically) resisting the Russians as they advance through Manchuria and in to Korea (btw going across the Yalu and down the Korean Peninsula is not easy for heavy armored forces) so it will probably be some time in November at least for the Russians to get all the way south. Of course, even when they get there they will have a hard time jumping across the strait to Japan for any number of reasons.
My point is the preponderance of the evidence shows that it will take a cataclysmic event to get the Japanese to surrender - whether the bombs, mass starvation threatening to destroy Japanese civilization (which would not occur until winter at the soonest), or a successful invasion of Honshu. Therefore I expect the war would drag on to the winter of 45/46 - with the Russians taking over all of Korea.
I expect that even if the bomb is delayed for this period of time it will be tested, and probably produced, although most likely in smaller numbers. This will have major effects as, absent the theory of atomic bomb trumping all the USA will need to keep larger conventional forces in response to the beginning of the Cold War. It is possible the separation of the Air Force is delayed or goes down differently, certainly Louis Johnson's pro-USAF/strategic (atomic) bombing actions won't happen & you see the USS United States built. Stalin is still as risk averse as ever but absent the practical demonstration of atomic weapons he may be more aggressive with the Berlin blockade/airlift or in Korea. either could lead to a WWIII.

Personally, I'm extremely doubtful that a full on adoption of the blockade strategy doesn't represent anything more than monday morning quarterbacking at the space of decades. The building impetus for Olympic was overwhelming by this time, whatever was being said in Allied staff meeting. The inevitable environmental force of history dictated Olympic, unless the concentration of all those forces in the Pacific and Asia, including the moving of US First Army from Europe, represented a political exercise only.

Say there's no Bomb and the Soviet invasion by itself isn't enough. The post-war survey suggested Japan would have surrendered due to bombing/blockade by Nov. 1 and by the end of the year at the latest. (1)

What might happen in the meantime?

I saw one counterfactual online suggesting that if the British landed in northern Malaya and marched toward Singapore as planned, the Japanese would tried to give Singapore the Manila treatment.

If Singapore is devastated in a fight between the British and Japanese or the Japanese recognize they can't hold it and decide to straight-up kill everyone out of spite, that could have some MAJOR effects in Asia in the near-term.

Perhaps Singapore ends up part of Malaysia?

1) Assuming you have no coup without The Bomb?

2) There are a lot of people in Singapore. Just how many people are going to be murdered, in how long an amount of time, by how many troops? I don't see that happening. The surviving whites, yes. But the natives? Unless the Japanese are willing to withdraw from the front lines purely in the name of a fruitless act of nihilism, I just don't see that happening. Plus they risk the British bouncing the island to stop any acts of genocide.

 

[zert]

My guess is that a few tempers are heating up. How about we focus on the original post and agree to disagree over some of the finer details.

On a new post, no bombs dropped, Korea stays OTL, do any think the Bomb will be used or will things build up to a MAD strategy?

 

[MerryPrankster]

1) Assuming you have no coup without The Bomb?

2) There are a lot of people in Singapore. Just how many people are going to be murdered, in how long an amount of time, by how many troops? I don't see that happening. The surviving whites, yes. But the natives? Unless the Japanese are willing to withdraw from the front lines purely in the name of a fruitless act of nihilism, I just don't see that happening. Plus they risk the British bouncing the island to stop any acts of genocide.

1. Assuming the government in power holds out until November or December and then decides to surrender.

2. Even if there's not a deliberate attempt to murder everyone in Singapore, a battle for the city could have some major effects. Anyone who become important later present in the armies of either Britain or Japan? They could be killed or go off on completely different life trajectories.

 

[phx1138]

The Manhattan project was not started to intimidate Stalin.

Where did I so much as hint it had been?

No they didn't or, more accurately, they didn't in the manner you assume.

Don't be too sure about what I assume.

Japan did get to keep the Emperor but they only did so after surrendering unconditionally. It's a subtle point, but one the revisionists continually fail to understand.

One of the usual arguments concerning use of the Bomb goes along the lines of "All they wanted to do was keep the Emperor. We let them keep him, so why didn't we let them know beforehand so they could surrender earlier?" This, of course, ignores, perhaps deliberately, the Allies' overarching war aim of "fixing" the Axis powers so they never would neer be a threat again.

The only thing the Allies "promised" the Axis prior to surrender was that Axis populations wouldn't be killed off and that the nations rebuilt out of the Axis would be allowed enough industry to feed themselves. Everything else was up to the Allies to determine with no input from the Axis.

And surrender that allowed something the Allies were prepared to accept would have ended the war months sooner. So explain to me how being able to "fix" Japan is dependent on Japan's agreeing to sacrifice the Throne when the Allies will let her keep it?

Prior to Japan's surrender, there were people in the US government who felt the Emperor or an emperor would be needed to be retained after a surrender.

Which effectively makes my point again.

I notice you deleted most of my factual posts that supported my points, making the rest seem weak and unsupportable.

Not at all. I'm only commenting on what I disagree with. You've made your points; is there some need to make them again?

Can't you just admit that maybe we agree on quite a bit of this, disagree on other matters, and are not going to come to a meeting of the minds on what separates us?

I don't recall refusing.

And you completely ignored the central concept of what that US News & World Report story truly represented: The absolute unholy terror the Japanese people believed in their own minds what they faced in those seven days between the 7th and 14th of August.

Which presupposes the first Bomb has been used. The OP says neither, so this "unholy terror" is, fairly clearly, not an operative factor TTL. Or did I miss something?

And I repeat: what part of the USN&WR piece is from a Japanese POV? It represents the U.S. view. It does not take account of the Japanese view before the first Bomb was dropped.

if they tried to fight on in the face of everything as of August 9th. One of the few times the generals had a correct political observation.

After an atomic bomb had been dropped, which is not the situation being discussed, is it?

no bombs dropped, Korea stays OTL, do any think the Bomb will be used or will things build up to a MAD strategy?

IMO, you are going to get to MAD eventually, much as "the bomber will always get through" led to a "deterrence race". This time, it will be true.

 

[Flubber]

And surrender that allowed something the Allies were prepared to accept would have ended the war months sooner.

You still don't understand.

The Allies were not prepared to accept any preconditions proposed by Japan. The Allies only promised two things, that the Japanese people wouldn't be slaughtered wholesale and that Japan would be allowed enough industry to feed itself. Anything that happened after the surrender would be decided by the Allies and the Allies alone. Japan's only choice was to surrender and place her future in the Allies hands.

So explain to me how being able to "fix" Japan is dependent on Japan's agreeing to sacrifice the Throne when the Allies will let her keep it?

Because the actual decision to keep the Emperor wasn't made until well after Japan's surrender. Before August of 1945, the Allies had not decided to allow the Emperor, or any emperor for that matter, to remain. That decision would be made, indeed could not be made, until Japan fully surrendered, was occupied, and various investigations made. In fact, no definitive decision regarding Hirohito or the imperial system was made for several years after the surrender.

Dower's Embracing Defeat covers all of this rather well. Hirohito and his throne were on rather shaky ground until the Korean War. It wasn't as if MacArthur simply announced one day in late '45 that Hirohito would remain emperor and that was that. Early on, SCAP had used Hirohito as a way to assert control and settle Japan to the occupation, but that didn't mean SCAP wouldn't eventually put Hirohito aside once SCAP felt his usefulness was over.

There is an important aspect to the occupation that many people are unaware of. The New Dealers and their thinking had worn out their welcome in the US, but they filled numerous important posts in the US occupation. The occupation was their last gasp of sorts. They worked to remake large parts of Japan's economy, politics, culture as if they were playing a 4X computer game while giving Japan laws on issues like voting, unionization, and women's rights which were more liberal than those in the US. In the process, they stirred about quite a bit of turmoil. There were no uprisings or terrorist campaigns naturally, but Japan in the late 40s wasn't as settled as people would like to think.

The Korean War first put many of the New Dealers' planned reforms on hold and then stopped them entirely. The US wanted a "quiet" Japan to act as a forward troop base, air strip, naval station, factory, and supply entrepot for the war. A radically reforming Japan working through various political and social tumults could not be those things, so the process was stopped and "normalcy" encouraged. He may have been no longer facing the noose, but it was only by the early 1950s that Hirohito could feel assured that the US wouldn't "ask" him to abdicate or "suggest" to the Diet that an emperor wasn't really needed at all.

So, it wasn't a case of Japan surrendering and being immediately told it could keep the Emperor. Any definitive decision regarding the Emperor and his position wasn't made for years afterward and then only when the Allies chose to do so.

 

[John Farson]

Where did I so much as hint it had been?

This hint:

Byrnes waited to see if the damn thing actually worked, & then wanted to use it on Japan to demonstrate what it could do to an actual city, & to demonstrate to the Sovs (frighten them, yes) the U.S. was willing to use it.

I've seen such a claim (bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to intimidate the Soviets) too many times for it to be funny anymore. At best, intimidating the Soviets was waaaaaaaaaay down the list of priorities for the Truman Administration. The main purpose of the bombings was to end the war ASAP, without any more US personnel getting killed. Soviet intervention in Manchuria was welcomed by Truman and co, not opposed.

 

[Aley]

Why use nukes in a war that the US was winning conventionally in 1950?

Consider the following:

a) Korea was a nation the USA was looking (after Inchon) to re-unite. How is Rhee (or for that matter MacArthur) likely to react to the idea of nuking the largest northern city in the country you are supposedly in the act of "liberating"? If the US sees NK as a Soviet puppet, they are not going to regard their civilian population as they would Japan's.

b) The USA still considered Chiang and his Nationalists in Taiwan to be the legitimate government of China. How are they going to react to the idea of nuking mainland China?

c) If Truman doesn't authorize conventional air strikes to knock out the Yalu River bridges to stop the Chinese Incursion, how can anyone believe he'll authorize first strike nukes on anybody?

I think that would not resist the temptation to test a bomb in a combat situation.

 

[The Red]

Say there's no Bomb and the Soviet invasion by itself isn't enough. The post-war survey suggested Japan would have surrendered due to bombing/blockade by Nov. 1 and by the end of the year at the latest.

It's worth taking the USSBS with a pinch of salt, reviewing the testimony of the Japanese officials the Air Force had interrogated in 1945, Robert Newman demonstrated that it is very hard to read that testimony objectively and not deduce that the USSBS reached its conclusion of a Japanese surrender during 1945 by ignoring its own evidence. In other words it's likely they already had a conclusion, that Strategic Bombing had primacy in causing Japan's surrender, and if that conclusion did not fit the evidence then too bad. Personally I think Todshikazu Kase, an official at the Japanese Foreign ministry, put it best when he stated:

It is certain that we would have surrendered in due time without the terrific chastisement of the bomb or the terrible shock of the Russian attack. However it cannot also be denied that both the bomb and the Russians facilitated our surrender.

Either the Atomic Bombings or the Soviet invasion alone probably would have been enough to bring the Japanese to the table by late 1945 even if the other did not occur, however without either the 'terrific chastisement' needed would likely have had to come from the failure of Ketsu-Go, and the onset of famine in early 1946.

 

[Garrison]

The problem with this is that the Soviets had completely undone that plan by their invasions of Manchuria and Sakhalin. First it meant that their empire in China, the basis of which they'd attacked the western powers over, was lost. Though it's disputed as to whether or not the Japanese knew that the Kwantung Army was collapsing in the face of the Soviet invasion, they would have known that there was no way in the long term that they could hold back the Soviets regardless. Secondly, it meant that from the north they were entirely exposed, even if they could repel the Americans from Kyushu, there was nothing to hold back the Soviets from taking Hokkaido, and then Honshu. Thirdly that would mean the occupation of Japan not by a liberal democracy, but from an even worse threat, Socialism. Stalin's socialism, which would quite happily execute the Emperor after, at best, a quick mock trial, and then go on to impose the type of regime they were already establishing in Eastern Europe. This was truly a nightmare for those left in control of Japan, one worse than American occupation, thus it's enitrely rational that they would have acquiesced to that lesser evil.

Sorry but 'entirely rational' and 'Imperial Japan' are two phrases that do not belong together. Even after two bombs and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria there was still a deadlock over surrender only ended by Hirihito's intervention. There is no circumstance in which the invasion of Manchuria alone would secure Japanese surrender.

 

[MerryPrankster]

It's worth taking the USSBS with a pinch of salt, reviewing the testimony of the Japanese officials the Air Force had interrogated in 1945, Robert Newman demonstrated that it is very hard to read that testimony objectively and not deduce that the USSBS reached its conclusion of a Japanese surrender during 1945 by ignoring its own evidence. In other words it's likely they already had a conclusion, that Strategic Bombing had primacy in causing Japan's surrender, and if that conclusion did not fit the evidence then too bad. Personally I think Todshikazu Kase, an official at the Japanese Foreign ministry, put it best when he stated:

Either the Atomic Bombings or the Soviet invasion alone probably would have been enough to bring the Japanese to the table by late 1945 even if the other did not occur, however without either the 'terrific chastisement' needed would likely have had to come from the failure of Ketsu-Go, and the onset of famine in early 1946.

Ah. Up until last year or so I didn't even know the survey existed and I haven't actually read it. I just know the juicy tidbits that come up in the A-Bomb discussions.

That being said, I don't think the invasion was planned until early 1946, so let's just pick the bombing-blockade-loss-of-land-empire surrender date in early December just so we can discuss what might happen in four months of extra war.