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On Aug 11 1945 the Soviet Union Decared War on Japan, Marshall Malinovski quicly occupied Manchuria and Korea, he was crossing China and turning the captured Japanese equipment over to Mao. Japan now faced invasion from that front too. Like the Germans the Japanese wanted to surrender to us rather than have much of the country occupied by the Soviets
Yeah, the invasion plans would have proceeded and would have occured in 1946, at a terrible cost in Japanese and Allied lives.
Now - if we had the A bombs available I have no doubt we would have continued to drop A bombs and turned Japan into glass. But we were months away from making additional A bombs (does anyone know how long and how many we could have produced at that time? I'm too lazy to look it up). The bombs itself were sort of a bluff, the Japanese did not know that we didn't have more available.
To answer second question - Japan did not have the offensive means to retaliate, althought they certaintly had defensive capabilities. I can't see them taking more brutal action against POW's and civilians in occupied areas then that which they already carried out in the war.
The actual invasion was planned to commence on November 1st 1945 with pre-invasion moves beginning in October. The pre-invasion plans even included a fake invasion fleet composed of ships mounted with extensive AA batteries and under large fighter escort to draw out and deplete the Japanese kamikaze forces, which were reportedly numbered at over 10k planes strong. The Americans had correctly concluded that the kamikaze were changing from attacking capital ships to attacking much more vulnerable transports. It was thought that up to 50% of transport ships used in the invasion would be destroyed by kamikaze attack.
Reading some information on Operation Downfall (which was the overall codename for the invasion) the U.S. envisioned using atomic bombs in a tactical role. The invasion was planned without them being available, but their use was discussed following the Trinity Test. It seems that the U.S. position was that if the first two didn't cause the surrender, subsequent bombs were going to be held for tactical use. There are estimates from as few as 7 to as many as 15 atomic bombs being available for the U.S. to use in a tactical role if the invastion happened. At the time the effect of fallout was relatively unknown and it was thought that U.S. troops could enter an area where a bomb had detonated in as little as 48 hours following the explosion.
Basically atomic weapons would be used on large troop concentrations with ground forces following up the bombing. The effect of the radiation on U.S. troops would have taken a tremendous toll. In addition to atomic weapons the U.S. also was strongly considering the use of chemical gas weapons. The Japanese lacked the ability to deliver their own, so there was no fear of retaliation and the chemical gas would have been ideal for clearing out the caves and bunkers favored by the Japanese.
Like I said earlier, the battlefield on Kyushu during the invasion would have resembled Armageddon with atomic weapons, poison gas, suicide attacks, etc.
I've heard before that there was a 3rd atom bomb which was never dropped... Anybody know about it?
The original bomb shipments to the deployment zone included one "Little Boy" and 2 "Fat Man" bombs. The components to assemble the bombs were shipped seperate from the cores and detonators. So, the third bomb was assembled and in place, sans core when the Japanese surrendered.
In between the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki and the surrender, another two "Fat Man" assemblies were readied at Tinian and the core of the third bomb was being prepared for transit to Tinian. At the time they were scheduled to complete another 3 bombs in September and another 3 in October. So, while there weren't any more bombs immediately "ready" the U.S. could have dropped one more within a couple weeks of when the surrender happened and dropped three a month in both September and October with what was readily available.
This is where the 7 bombs for use in a tactical capacity to support the invasion comes from. Some sources quote 15 total that could have been used in the invasion, but don't give a timeframe as to when they would be available. I believe the 15 number comes from the total amount of bomb material the U.S. had on hand that could be made into atomic weapons.
On Aug 11 1945 the Soviet Union Decared War on Japan, Marshall Malinovski quicly occupied Manchuria and Korea, he was crossing China and turning the captured Japanese equipment over to Mao. Japan now faced invasion from that front too. Like the Germans the Japanese wanted to surrender to us rather than have much of the country occupied by the Soviets
I don't think the Japanese had quite the fear or mistrust of the Soviets that the Germans had. The Japanese up until the moment Russia broke the neutrality pact had been hoping that Russia would mediate a conditional surrender. As it was Russia intended to stick to the terms specified in the Cairo declaration and reaffirmed at Potsdam. To that end they drug out the negotiations while they mobilized their troops in the east. The Russians wanted in on Japan so that they could gain possession of the Sakhalin and Kurile islands that could be used as bases to blockade the only year round port the Russians had in the Pacific at Vladivostok.
I don't think the Japanese feared a Soviet occupation, but the entrance of the Soviets into the war combined with the atomic bombings was quite a shock. The Japanese home islands were now completely cut off as the Soviets were able to take terriroty overland that would have taken months of operations for the U.S. to secure to completely cut Japan off from the outside. It also marked the end of any possibility for a negotiated peace via an intermediary. Japan was left with either accepting the terms they were given or fighting on.
So, it seems some would paint the picture that the Japanese were fearful of a Soviet occupation, but I don't think that was the case. Instead they were faced with the reality that they had no friends left and were now very much cut-off.
I don't think the Japanese had quite the fear or mistrust of the Soviets that the Germans had. The Japanese up until the moment Russia broke the neutrality pact had been hoping that Russia would mediate a conditional surrender. As it was Russia intended to stick to the terms specified in the Cairo declaration and reaffirmed at Potsdam. To that end they drug out the negotiations while they mobilized their troops in the east. The Russians wanted in on Japan so that they could gain possession of the Sakhalin and Kurile islands that could be used as bases to blockade the only year round port the Russians had in the Pacific at Vladivostok.
I don't think the Japanese feared a Soviet occupation, but the entrance of the Soviets into the war combined with the atomic bombings was quite a shock. The Japanese home islands were now completely cut off as the Soviets were able to take terriroty overland that would have taken months of operations for the U.S. to secure to completely cut Japan off from the outside. It also marked the end of any possibility for a negotiated peace via an intermediary. Japan was left with either accepting the terms they were given or fighting on.
So, it seems some would paint the picture that the Japanese were fearful of a Soviet occupation, but I don't think that was the case. Instead they were faced with the reality that they had no friends left and were now very much cut-off.
By that point in the war the only part of the Japanese industrial base outside US bomber range was North Korea, the Chosin Resevoir Complex and Wonsan. Once the Soviets occupied that it was over for them.
By the time of the atomic bombs, certain portions of the Japanese civilian population were already getting close to starvation. Even after the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the Japanese inner war cabinet was divided three to three about whether to surrender or continue the war. At this point Emperor Hirohito intervened personally and forcefully (which had not been his role up until that point) and forced the surrender. According to Max Hastings in Retribution (an excellent account of the last two years of the Pacific War), the atomic bombings were the main reason the civilian politicians (including Hirohito) decided on surrender, while the Soviet attack on Manchuria was the more disturbing factor to the military. By the way, the fighting in Marchuria was actually on a fairly large scale, and it is not normally treated in any detail at all in Anglo-American accounts of the war. The Max Hastings book is an exception.
As others have pointed out, atomic bombs were in very short supply. But ordinary bombs, filled with napalm and other goodies, we had in vast quantities. After the end of the war in Europe, thousands of heavy bombers - Flying Fortresses, Liberators, Lancasters - were being transferred to the Pacific Theater. Add to that thousands of carrier born aircraft buzzing around off the coast of Japan. Even without nukes, the outlook for Japan was not pretty.
Max Hastings states on page 507 in Retribution, "A third [atomic] weapon would be ready for delivery on August 19". The context makes it clear this means delivery on a Japanese city, not just ready for shipment to Tinian. On August 10, "...Truman told the cabinet he had given orders that no further atomic bombs should be dropped on Japan without his explicit authority" (also page 507). There was discussion at the highest levels whether to recommend to Truman that the third bomb be dropped as soon as available on the 19th or held back for use with other bombs later, for example in support of an invasion. Hastings is very careful with his facts, always stating if there is doubt about something, so I think we can rely on the above. He does not go into the question of other bombs in the pipeline beyond the third one.
I agree. At this point if there had been no surrender, the US simply could have, and probably should have, waited until the spring when the next bomb rolled off the assembly line.
However, that could have cost the lives of tens of thousands of Allied prisoners, both military and civilian, who were starving, and/or being worked to death, in Japanese prison camps. Because of the behavior of the Germans, we sometimes lose sight of just how badly the Japanese treated prisoners.
When the war ended in Europe the orders had already gone out to those who liberated it that they were on their way to the Pacific. The invasion of the Japan was planned. The outcome was going to be horendous, since the results of Okenawa showed how the civilians would fight back too, and those who could not frequently killed themselves.
It was going to cost Japan millions of lives and some of us wouldn't be around now if parents or grand parents had never come home.
The bomb was hoped to be the thing that spared the world more slaughter. Since we couldn't immediately produce another bomb we would have had to do something, not wait for months, and that would have been to begin a land invasion. In the months it took for another bomb, thousands and thousands more would be dead.
Another bomb might have made a difference, but by then the surprise would have not applied and they Japanese would have been aware that there was no more than one ready, and it would be yet months more to wait until there was another. If thousands of Japanese were dying in conventional warfare as the civilian army fought and died, would the threat have been as effective? The Japanese would not heve taken into consideration the fate of pow's and civilians held. Likely if an invasion occured the masses of pow's moved to slave labor in Japan would have been executed long before then as they had been promised.
I think the reason that people don't remember the atorcities commited by the Japanese as much as it is remembered of the Germans is that it was done in places that were so isolated that few pictures were ever seen and little prosecution was done because there were in some cases, NO survivors. And the cold war had started and we suddenly needed Japan as an ally against the Russians. So many simply got a pass as did the lesser of the German's charged since we needed them too.
And becuse it was cultural in Japan. For a soldier to surrender to the Japanese, he made him self not worthy of respect. So in their eyes it was acceptable to treat their pow's as subhuman because they had made themselves that way by their surrender. While the treatment of both civilians, and military pow's was horrible, it lacked the centrally planned and executed machine that the Germans built and which could not fail to horrify those who did not think it possible for human beings to make such plans.
Yeah, the invasion plans would have proceeded and would have occured in 1946, at a terrible cost in Japanese and Allied lives.
Now - if we had the A bombs available I have no doubt we would have continued to drop A bombs and turned Japan into glass. But we were months away from making additional A bombs (does anyone know how long and how many we could have produced at that time? I'm too lazy to look it up). The bombs itself were sort of a bluff, the Japanese did not know that we didn't have more available.
To answer second question - Japan did not have the offensive means to retaliate, althought they certaintly had defensive capabilities. I can't see them taking more brutal action against POW's and civilians in occupied areas then that which they already carried out in the war.
We were counting on the shock of the deathtoll in an instant to convincen the Japanese to take unconditional surrender. Even with two bombs the government was split and the emperior broke the stalemate for surrender. I have doubts that if we did not produce another bombing soon it would have had the same impact after the amount of civilian and military deaths conventional warfare would have produced by then.
The POW's who had been moved to Japan itself knew that should there be an invasion they were to be exectued immediately. They assumed they would die before liberation. On the ilsland they retreated from where camps were left behind, anyone not removed died. One reason why there were fewer prosecutions, including none in the case of the medical camp which saw the execution of every single prisoner. There was nobody to testify.
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Date of availability of the next atomic bomb
