The reason I always see for dropping the bombs is almost entirely built around the scenario of the U.S. not having to invade and suffer huge casualties, [up to 1 million]
But what ‘‘if’’ the bombs didn’t work, or force the Japanese to surrender, why would it be imperative to invade?
More than 60 of its cities had been destroyed by conventional bombing, the home islands were being blockaded by the American Navy, and the country was on the verge of starvation, plus the Soviet Union entered the war and quickly destroyed 600,000 Japanese in Manchuria.
The blockade and fire bombing would soon bring them to their knees for minimal U.S. casualties, [think the last series of bombing raids had casualties of 0.03%] so why invade and suffer horrendous casualties?
Because Japan wouldn’t surrender unconditionally, as required by America but less so by a wavering Churchill who had less interest in the war against Japan than against Germany which he’d already won and as a consequence was facing domestic problems about pursuing a distant war against Japan while Britain was still short of food and basic civilian supplies.
Invasion was the only way of ending the war against an enemy that showed every sign of fighting until it was ground into the dust.
Japanese preparations for the defence were suicidal at various military and civilian levels, not that the Allies (essentially the Americans) knew that at the time, but things like the kamikaze plane attacks and defence of Okinawa made it clear to any reasonable observer that Japan was a nation that wouldn’t surrender until it was defeated by force of arms.
American military doctrine, then and now, in conventional warfare favours applying overwhelming firepower to reduce the enemy before risking flesh, which was almost the opposite of Japanese military doctrine in WWII which recognised its industrial and materiel limitations and put more emphasis on flesh than firepower.
If you trawl through this site you’ll find discussions about other aspects influencing the decision to nuke Japan such as America trying to intimidate the Soviets and Japan dragging out peace feelers to get the best deal for Japan to preserve the Emperor.
Why would the United States be set on unconditional surrender? In the Korean war the US did not demand unconditional surrender. If the US was willing to take the chance of ridicule and loss of prestige for not being assertive in Korea why would it have a different attitude towards Japan?
Hi Rising Sun,
I see your points, they would definitely need some grinding into the dust, but why not use the blockade and around the clock bombing to do the grinding for minimal casualties vs a ground war and up to a million casualties.
And as you say American military doctrine, then and now, in conventional warfare favours applying overwhelming firepower to reduce the enemy before risking flesh, well, this was good chance of using that overwhelming firepower [bombing offensive] vs flesh [ground campaign]
Some argue that bombing would take too long and that the U.S. wanted it over as quickly as possible, although the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey done after the war reported that the Japanese were on the verge of surrendering and probably would have done so before Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, set to begin in November 1945, [even if the A bombs weren’t used] although the Americans didn’t know this at the time.
Afraid I’d make a lousy C in C, much too soft, I’d always be looking for ways to save my men so I’d probably take the bombing route, however long it took.
As for the dropping of the A bombs, it’s certainly a great read on the ‘‘Should the atomic bombs have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? thread’’
America was war weary and financially strapped by the war. Everyone on the Allied side wanted it finished ASAP, and Japan didn’t.
Trying to starve Japan into submission would have taken years, maybe decades, assuming it ever worked against a leadership that was quite happy to use all its people in a suicidal effort against an invader. Meanwhile isolated Japanese outposts in the SWPA were still resisting, which showed Japan’s unwillingness to surrender even when cut off and starving.
An invasion seemed like the only way to bring it to a relatively quick end, militarily, with total defeat of Japan. That’s what the Allies had been working towards since 1941. The strategy was all designed to that end, and it acquired its own momentum which made that end inevitable, if Japan didn’t surrender sooner.
There was also the American political reality that Truman would face an election in 1948. He wouldn’t want to be chipping away at Japan’s coast several years after Japan had been defeated everywhere but in the home islands. That wasn’t a motivating factor as such, but the need to end the war quickly to avoid dragging it on with adverse political consequences for a war weary nation was a political consideration that encouraged a decisive end, which seemed to be achievable only by an invasion and was the intended end of America’s whole grand strategy. Politically, it didn’t make sense to do anything but administer the coup de grace represented by the invasion.
Also, it comes back to the basic military reality that, certainly before Gulf War 1, no nation had been bombed into surrender and victory required either vanquishing the enemy or attacking him with such force and success that he realised he had no option but to surrender.
It’s not an aspect I know anything about, but I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the American motivation was a desire to get into the home islands to exclude the Soviets, although America was also keen for the Soviets to attack Japan long before the end of the war. Conversely, Olympic was planned long before the stunning Russian advances in the last weeks of the war, so the invasion wasn’t a response to any fear that Soviet success might get them into the home islands because of those successes.
A related aspect I’d like to know more about is the significance of the contest for China, which in many ways is what the war with Japan was really about if one goes back to 1931 and Japan’s threat to Western interests there which go back to the 19th century. That gets tied up with Allied support for Chiang and the wild card of Mao threatening to displace Western interests. The whole China aspect permeates Japan’s war, but I have yet to begin to understand it and how it affected Western thinking and actions.
I wouldn’t tend to take what AAR bombing surveys say at face value. They’ll probably also tell you that bomber generals were the greatest geniuses in the history of warfare and that their ground war counterparts were dum dums…
In any case, the US strategic bombing would have been better off not even hitting Japanese cities since there was little real concentration of industry to be targeted. I’ve seen arguments that the US would have been better off just targeting Japanese ports and their their campaign against Japanese shipping using strategic air power both laying mines and battering harbours and defensive troop concentrations waiting at the correctly guessed likely landing areas would have had better success without firebombing civilians…
Afraid I’d make a lousy C in C, much too soft, I’d always be looking for ways to save my men so I’d probably take the bombing route, however long it took.
As for the dropping of the A bombs, it’s certainly a great read on the ‘‘Should the atomic bombs have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? thread’’
One thing needs to be said however regarding the use of ground troops. I don’t often agree nor think highly of Gen. MacArthur, but he may have been right in thinking that if America armor were to break through the Tokyo Plane, that the Japanese defense would crumble much as it had in Manchuria during “August Storm.” The Japanese simply had no widely available defense against tanks in a battle of maneuver. The US was also prepositioning its new Pershing tanks on Okinawa should the invasion have been necessary. Predictions vary, and there is little question that the initial assaults would have suffered horrendous casualties, especially if troop ships fell victim to Kamikaze attacks. But I do believe that once the Japanese defense were reduced around the landing areas, the end would come quick…
According to the Strategic Bombing survey sixty-four percent of the population stated that they had reached a point prior to surrender where they felt personally unable to go on with the war. Of these, less than one-tenth attributed the cause to military defeats, one-quarter attributed the cause to shortages of food and civilian supplies, the largest part to air attack.
The survey goes on to explain the plight of the starving population, their conclusion is that the Japanese couldn’t last much longer and that they would have surrendered before the invasion date.
The main man Hirohito [the man with the final say] and the doves in the cabinet wanted to call it quits, the sticking point was the guarantee of the throne.
Naturally the military wanted to fight to the last man but as soon as the Emperor said quit, they quit.
As you say the Americans urged the Soviets for help against the Japanese so I guess that if the bombs didn’t work and it came to a bloodbath the U.S. would have been glad of Soviet help.
‘‘Predictions vary, and there is little question that the initial assaults would have suffered horrendous casualties, especially if troop ships fell victim to Kamikaze attacks.’’
Hi Nick
That’s the part that would scare the pants off me, think I’d go with 0.03% casualties and stick to blockade and bombing.
On the Strategic Bombing Survey… it says it was was established by the Secretary of War on 3 November 1944, pursuant to a directive from the late President Roosevelt and as far as I know none of the members had any connection with the USAAF, have you seen it on…
Well, not exactly. Some IJA officers did launch a coup de’tat against the emperor,and were largely foiled because of a bombing raid which killed the power. They may have failed anyways, but there were still factions that needed to me neutralized even after the atomic bombings…
Hi Nick
That’s the part that would scare the pants off me, think I’d go with 0.03% casualties and stick to blockade and bombing.
On the Strategic Bombing Survey… it says it was was established by the Secretary of War on 3 November 1944, pursuant to a directive from the late President Roosevelt and as far as I know none of the members had any connection with the USAAF, have you seen it on…
Yes, but there was fear that the Soviets were coming. I’m not sure the Red Army and Navy could have carried out or sustained such a large scale amphibious assault. But they were taking some islands nevertheless…
And much of the Strategic Bombing Survey has been questioned by historians as merely rationalization…
What’s interesting about that last minute coup attempt is that, like many of their colleagues, some of the relatively junior officers who carried it out actually believed that they were going to rescue the Emperor, because it was inconceivable that he could surrender. They thought he was being manipulated by others or that the surrender broadcast was a fraud.
What the IJA and IJN never grasped was that the Emperor always acted to preserve the Imperial line, despite it being kept from true Imperial power by the IJA, the IJN, the government, the Japanese constitution, and the Shoguns before that.
In the end, the Emperor with very little real power against the IJA and IJN and government came out as the only intact survivor of the war, and paradoxically because of the elevation of the Emperor in the post-Shogun constitution and the later exploitation of that office for nationalistic purposes by various elements in Japan, notably the IJA.
It’s one of those cases where clever dicks outsmarted themselves and created something they couldn’t control, like the Israelis with Hamas in another context.
The Soviets made amphibious landings in the Kurils, Sakhalin island and North Korea, but they were very small compared to the enormous task force the U.S. was planning for Operation Olympic.
By all accounts the Soviets were confident they could invade and Glantz seems to think that they had some chance of invading Hokkaido before the Americans got a foothold on Kyushu, but others have argued that it was beyond the Soviets amphibious capabilities.
By all accounts there was about 6 understrength Japanese divisions on Hokkaido, and about 170 suicide aircraft.
If the bombs didn’t work, do you the Americans would have still welcomed the Soviet help they asked for at Yalta, or had the change in administration soured relations to much.
It would mean a heck of a lot more American casualties if they went at it alone, that’s why Roosevelt urged Stalin for help.
Yep, it’s remarkable that many millions of Japanese, men and officers imbued with the credo of fighting to the last man and would rather die then surrender, would meekly lay down their arms almost to a man on command of the Emperor.
