What is there is a revolution or revolts of some form or another? Apparently the army and navy were forcing mass suicides or lieing about the fate of those killing themselves (apparently causing some mothers who were saved from jumping off cliffs after hurling their children over going catatonic upon realizing they had been lied to about the Americans being monsters and that they killed their children for nothing). Also read somewhere that the Japanese government decided that they would face revolution if they didn't do something, and the end of the war in Europe meant nearly entirety of the British, Dominion, and American naval and air forces would be on their way over, the obliteration of the few large cities not destroyed, and the Soviets steamrolling through the north gave them the excuse they needed to pull out by pointing to how it could only end in the annihilation of Japan. Not as if the Diet had been in charge of the wars, anyways. The Army had been putting them on a perpetual war footing.
WI no atomic bombing of Japan
- Thread starter Tyr
- Start date
usertron2020
Donor
The only way there ISN'T a Korean War is if the USSR gets the whole peninsula and the ROK never exists at all. Quite likely ITTL. All the more so with Soviet contempt for atomic weapons likely strengthened.
The USSR actually had plans to land forces to Northern Hokkaido in August. Truman's reaction for this suggestion was such though that Stalin backed away from those plans and the Soviets decided to concentrate on Southern Kuriles instead.
What was the OTL start date on Southern Kuriles landing? 18th of August?
I would think a Korean War might be earlier even. The soviets detonating their first nuclear bomb (this showing the Americans if the war spilled over it would not be good for them...) was a big part of what made them give Korea the go ahead.
Yep. The Japanese government at the time were very very worried that a revolution was brewing.
It may seem odd to look at modern japan but back then (and for quite a whole after, read about the history of narita airport for example) communism was a very big thing in japan. This was their ultimate fear-communists afterall tend not to like pre existing ruling classes and monarchies.
This is probably the major factor in their decision to surrender. They knew food stocks would keep going lower and this would eventually push things into a Russian revolution sort of direction.
in '45 japan kept fighting
because it believed it could inflict casualties at a rate its opponents would flinch from continuing
The entry of the Soviets for the first time convinced them that at least one of its adversaries could and would fight whatever the cost in blood.
because it believed it could inflict casualties at a rate its opponents would flinch from continuing
The entry of the Soviets for the first time convinced them that at least one of its adversaries could and would fight whatever the cost in blood.
RodentRevolution
Banned
You know I am not sure there was any such real appreciation or investigation as to whether that was likely, it just sounded a semi plausible excuse and slightly better than relating the story of Nasreddin and the Horse.
Given that certain members of the leadership knew they were for the high jump no matter whether it was from the Allies or their colleagues once they had clearly lost, they just clung on and hoped some miracle would turn up.
Yeah, the idea that they would keep fighting just fundamentally misunderstands quite how screwed Japan was.
If the American invasion happened (it wouldn't) then the beach head would probably be pretty nasty as would a few days after that .... but then the far right crazies would have all killed themselves on the American guns. An overthrow of the leaders by slightly more sensible people in Tokyo would soon follow (afterall, it should have happened long before the invasion)
If the American invasion happened (it wouldn't) then the beach head would probably be pretty nasty as would a few days after that .... but then the far right crazies would have all killed themselves on the American guns. An overthrow of the leaders by slightly more sensible people in Tokyo would soon follow (afterall, it should have happened long before the invasion)
shiftygiant
Gone Fishin'
There were (vague) warnings, and Truman was shown to have moral issues with the bomb, although this didn't stop him authorizing two bomb drops, with the threat of more- X-Day was going to have Seven, for Christ sake. I'm not saying he didn't loose sleep, I'm just saying he'd be thankful to not have used them.
Though I would like to put the continuation to my little comment. Soviets march into Manchuria and the Japanese surrender before the bomb drops. It'll only be a matter of time before they do decide to drop the bomb, very likely in Korea. After all, to the army it's "Just a bigger bomb".
I do believe the Japanese military/government publically and officially mocked/scorned the demand for surrender AFTER the first atom bomb had dropped.
It is very unlikely they surrender over a mere Soviet attack on Manchuria alone. That by itself is no threat to the main islands. It would take the Soviets months to invade, it had no navy to speak of.
Agreed. If it hadn't been Hiroshima or Nagasaki, it would have been somewhere else, probably worse, and maybe with retaliation in kind.
usertron2020
Donor
That Car is a lot tougher than I thought!
THIS was something even the all but most fanatical of the hotheads took seriously by the very end, and helped some (like Anami) to swallow the Potsdam Declaration. It was easier for him, since he committed suicide quickly afterwards.
It was this part for which I have always held the Hotheads in the absolutely highest contempt. Not the over-the-moon middle level officers, but the flag officers.
"Field Marshal"/General Hajime Sugiyama, frex. A 100% advocate for the war, told Hirohito the Second Sino-Chinese War would be over in three months and the war with America in six, demanded that ALL the Doolittle Fliers be executed and personally signed the death warrants for the three who were murdered, and found himself as Public Enemy #1 for the Americans in terms of who was to be arrested FIRST by the entering American Occupation authorities (except methinks Tojo himself, though he'd been deposed a year previously).
Sugiyama KNEW he was a dead man, and as the former minister of war and commander of the defenses of Japan proper, he had zero reason to argue for any negotiations at all. Without going full on Godfrey, I think I can honestly say that he had no more a chance of survival than any of Hitler's highest inner circle (frex, Himmler, Goebbels, Goering, and of course Hitler himself). If ANY Japanese was going to hang besides Tojo, it would be Sugiyama, and the man certainly knew that.
It was well understood (even by the contemporary OTL Japanese atomic physicists, one of whom was quickly flown to Hiroshima to confirm that YES, the bomb was atomic) that the atomic bomb was possible. But that understanding was based on the U-235 concept, the cost of which was horribly prohibitive even for the United States except as a bluff (one bomb only IS a bluff, after all).
But it was also believed that a U-239 bomb represented a 1960s/70s level of technology, so Japan didn't have to worry about such a threat. However, if the USA HAD developed the U-239, it meant mass-produced atom bombs. Not something to be sneered at. So the IJA generals mocking/scorning the physical threat of one bomb by itself was easy if you say "screw the people". But when the news of Nagasaki arrived at Supreme Japanese War Council HQ...
As I've posted elsewhere (from an 8th August "US News & World Report" magazine article), imagine the political effects on the Japanese populace when they start fearing the results of every B-29 in the US inventory dropping one atom bomb a day for a month upon a helpless Japan. (1)\
1) Yes, "duh", not possible. But would a Japanese farmer or fisherman be expected to know that, or be willing to risk it?
The "National Japanese Communist Uprising" doesn't look so crazy then, and even the warlords knew it
"The military" representing a small band of fanatics with nothing more than a colonel representing the highest ranking officer in it. Far more likely for the plotters is to inherit a political collapse of the country with all against all, and only the Allies (including the USSR) taking advantage. THIS is one scenario where you COULD see a "North /South Japan".
I remember a late 1980s graphic novel mini-series where through a series of multiple assassinations (taken place over a period of a year) a military coup took place led by junior officers of the US Army. They declared that following the blowing up of the White House (by the coup plotters, and for the 2nd or 3rd time in the series IIRC) they were "forced" to declare a state of national emergency (under whose authority!?) until "the situation could be stabilized".
Whereupon the coup leader was told by his minions that New England had just seceded from the Union to form its own country. As the coup leader (a colonel!) is watching the electronic display map of the USA, as he quickly watches the South secede and re-form the Confederacy (NOT THAT Confederacy), the NW USA secedes and applies to Canada for protection, California secedes into a Anglo-Hispanic nation state, as does Texas, and New York City declares itself an independent City-State.
The beautiful part of the story is one of the face of the colonel, a career intelligence agent and assassin, desperately trying to think "Now, who can I assassinate to fix all this!?" Moral of the Story? Don't break something you can't fix. I can well imagine things going the same way had the Japanese coup-plotters "succeeded". Rover caught the car. NOW WHAT!?
THIS was something even the all but most fanatical of the hotheads took seriously by the very end, and helped some (like Anami) to swallow the Potsdam Declaration. It was easier for him, since he committed suicide quickly afterwards.
It was this part for which I have always held the Hotheads in the absolutely highest contempt. Not the over-the-moon middle level officers, but the flag officers.
"Field Marshal"/General Hajime Sugiyama, frex. A 100% advocate for the war, told Hirohito the Second Sino-Chinese War would be over in three months and the war with America in six, demanded that ALL the Doolittle Fliers be executed and personally signed the death warrants for the three who were murdered, and found himself as Public Enemy #1 for the Americans in terms of who was to be arrested FIRST by the entering American Occupation authorities (except methinks Tojo himself, though he'd been deposed a year previously).
Sugiyama KNEW he was a dead man, and as the former minister of war and commander of the defenses of Japan proper, he had zero reason to argue for any negotiations at all. Without going full on Godfrey, I think I can honestly say that he had no more a chance of survival than any of Hitler's highest inner circle (frex, Himmler, Goebbels, Goering, and of course Hitler himself). If ANY Japanese was going to hang besides Tojo, it would be Sugiyama, and the man certainly knew that.
It was well understood (even by the contemporary OTL Japanese atomic physicists, one of whom was quickly flown to Hiroshima to confirm that YES, the bomb was atomic) that the atomic bomb was possible. But that understanding was based on the U-235 concept, the cost of which was horribly prohibitive even for the United States except as a bluff (one bomb only IS a bluff, after all).
But it was also believed that a U-239 bomb represented a 1960s/70s level of technology, so Japan didn't have to worry about such a threat. However, if the USA HAD developed the U-239, it meant mass-produced atom bombs. Not something to be sneered at. So the IJA generals mocking/scorning the physical threat of one bomb by itself was easy if you say "screw the people". But when the news of Nagasaki arrived at Supreme Japanese War Council HQ...
As I've posted elsewhere (from an 8th August "US News & World Report" magazine article), imagine the political effects on the Japanese populace when they start fearing the results of every B-29 in the US inventory dropping one atom bomb a day for a month upon a helpless Japan.
(1)\1) Yes, "duh", not possible. But would a Japanese farmer or fisherman be expected to know that, or be willing to risk it?
The "National Japanese Communist Uprising" doesn't look so crazy then, and even the warlords knew it
"The military" representing a small band of fanatics with nothing more than a colonel representing the highest ranking officer in it. Far more likely for the plotters is to inherit a political collapse of the country with all against all, and only the Allies (including the USSR) taking advantage. THIS is one scenario where you COULD see a "North /South Japan".
I remember a late 1980s graphic novel mini-series where through a series of multiple assassinations (taken place over a period of a year) a military coup took place led by junior officers of the US Army. They declared that following the blowing up of the White House (by the coup plotters,
and for the 2nd or 3rd time in the series IIRC) they were "forced" to declare a state of national emergency (under whose authority!?) until "the situation could be stabilized".Whereupon the coup leader was told by his minions that New England had just seceded from the Union to form its own country. As the coup leader (a colonel!
) is watching the electronic display map of the USA, as he quickly watches the South secede and re-form the Confederacy (NOT THAT Confederacy), the NW USA secedes and applies to Canada for protection, California secedes into a Anglo-Hispanic nation state, as does Texas, and New York City declares itself an independent City-State.The beautiful part of the story is one of the face of the colonel, a career intelligence agent and assassin, desperately trying to think "Now, who can I assassinate to fix all this!?"
Moral of the Story? Don't break something you can't fix. I can well imagine things going the same way had the Japanese coup-plotters "succeeded". Rover caught the car. NOW WHAT!?
Last edited:
If just starvation and the threat of eventual invasion was enough to cause surrender, I sit in the camp of "No matter how you look at it, Downfall couldn't have happened." They had already expended their military capabilities and could handle no more, and they knew it. The Soviet Invasion was just the last straw on growing pile of strain from starvation/bombings
A surrender in August without the Atomic Bombings seems plausible to me.
The aftermath? The lessons of Atomic warfare are learned in Korea, though in a controlled manner. The Russians, Americans, and Chinese never struck each other directly on each other's soil. That shouldn't change. When the Chinese throw back the UN forces from central Korea, reversing the tide and threatening to take Seoul again, I expect the Americans will decide to order the nuke strike. This might have the effect of ending the Korean War stalemate phase much earlier than OTL.
A surrender in August without the Atomic Bombings seems plausible to me.
The aftermath? The lessons of Atomic warfare are learned in Korea, though in a controlled manner. The Russians, Americans, and Chinese never struck each other directly on each other's soil. That shouldn't change. When the Chinese throw back the UN forces from central Korea, reversing the tide and threatening to take Seoul again, I expect the Americans will decide to order the nuke strike. This might have the effect of ending the Korean War stalemate phase much earlier than OTL.
usertron2020
Donor
Upon mature reflection, I've changed my mind. Even ITTL, nukes DON'T get used in Korea. Though Truman's decision-making was light years better than MacArthur's, he had a genuine terror over the use of nuclear weapons OR THE USE OF EVEN CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS anywhere where near Chinese or Soviet territory.
Truman's refusal to allow MacArthur to knock out the Yalu River bridges (totally cutting off the legs of UN defense strategy in the event of Chinese Intervention) even as hordes of Chinese troops were pouring across them on the grounds that the northern half of the bridges were on Chinese soil were not based on politics, true. But considering Truman's deep personal hatred (1) of MacArthur and Dougie's own inflated sense of self-importance, it definitely did not pass the smell test.
1) Truman was a warm, affable, and friendly person up close. But if he decided he hated you, he let you have it with both barrels. Mind, much of this Dougie brought upon himself. But if Truman could manage to hate Eisenhower, a man who managed to deal with personalities as difficult as Patton's, Marshall's, and Monty's, maybe then it wasn't ALL on Dougout Dougie's this time...
Heresy, I know
At Hiroshima I believe that a seventh of those who died were Korean slave laborers. Did any of those at Hiroshima survive to be freed? Is there any chance they would even survive the month without the end of the war? And on a more butter flying note, what of all those from the nuked city who got shunned for fear of being tainted? Might people from those cities have ended up making great strides in one way or another by being Fromm some of the only cities not burned to the ground?