I get the Japanese were fanatical defenders elsewhere, but there's a limit for any populace. I just find it really hard to believe that every single person in Japan from old men to schoolgirls would fight to the death for every inch of land with suicidal abandon, until they had been basically wiped off the planet as a people. Resistance on that level has never occurred in history.
well sure it wouldn't be 100% but it'd still be pretty grisly
okinawa wasn't a stroll through the park
No, even the most pessimistic predictions weren't the total death of the Japanese. But it was certainly not a low number, it was in the several million if memory serves.
>several million
of dead american soldiers. The Japanese would have continued fighting till the island was free or they were all dead.
Just like they ended up doing right?
>I just find it really hard to believe that every single person in Japan from old men to schoolgirls would fight to the death for every inch of land with suicidal abandon, until they had been basically wiped off the planet as a people.
that is because your soul is a bad joke.
even their ghosts would continue fighting. If the entire populace was eliminated the islands would become a field of strange deaths for all and any americans and other allies that remained on it.
Millions of american suicides would occur, strange accidents and crimes and so on.
If you think the thousands of american soldiers commiting suicide now is alot think again.
False
The land would be sanctified under holy light as the native Americans curses were
No, not every jap was a total fanatic, even kamikaze pilots were filled with people that didn’t wanna be there once they had blown through willing volunteers. But if you mean national suicide as their defense leading to the death of Japanese culture up until that point then probably, they wouldn’t get off nearly as easy in occupation afterwards
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/japanese-mass-suicides/
>Ota Masahide, a survivor and Okinawa historian, wrote in an article for the Asia-Pacific Journal in 2014 that the military distributed hand-grenades to the civilian population as the means to commit suicide with loved ones. Those that survived the grenades “worried” about being alive and found other ways to kill themselves with other weapons such as scythes, razor blades, ropes, rocks, and sticks. Military propaganda had warned the civilian population that if they were captured, the Americans would torture, rape, and murder them.
>“As the mayhem unfolded, they found all sorts of ways to kill…Men bashed their wives and parents bashed their children, young people killed the elderly and the strong killed the weak,” Masahide said. “What they felt in common was the belief that they were doing this out of love and compassion.”
Fricking horrific. Just like any weeb on PrepHole(nel), I love the prettier aspects of nip culture, but the ugly ones like this are what prevent me from going full Ken-sama
Okinawans are not porper japanese. They were and still to some degree are considered a lesser race, Above Koreadn but beneath macaques. Proper Japanese would not be this brainwashed on purpose.
They thought that the shit they were doing to the rest of Asia would be returned to them 10 fold this is what happens when you think you are the chosen divine people the fall is hard.
anon, do you know why enola gay and bockscar flew over japan uncontested?
because at that point they were saving every airframe, every bullet, and every drop of fuel for the eventual mainland invasion
they were prepared to fight and die to the last baby
While they were saving resources B-29 flights in the atomic bombing missions looked no different than recon flights and these were so routine that they were regularly allowed through without issue
>allowed
by that point Japan's air defenses had been essentially totally dismantled, with air assets often bombed in place because of lack of fuel.
there was nothing left to contest the airspace, they weren't "saving up"
not representative of all of them but representative of many. the American soldiers dealing with the aftermath of - or witnessing - mass suicides of Japanese civilians consistently cited those as the worst of the traumas they experienced in the entire war. the horrific irony of it all is that the image of the horror of American occupation sold to Japanese civilians was a reflection of the very real horror of Japanese occupations elsewhere that they would likely never hear about, and some morons disbelieve to this day. they drove their own people to suicide by dressing up their own atrocities in the American flags of a coming invasion.
they were pummeled sure but not beaten
they still had a plan and preparations done, however desperate and futile
Japanese aircraft continued interceptions up until and even after surrender, recon flights were routinely ignored in favor of attacking the actual bomber trains that they were setting up for
>they weren't "saving up"
They absolutely were, aircraft were hidden everywhere and allied estimates placed them at at least 10,000 aircraft by operation downfall’s start
Not complete suicide but it would have been very bloody for both sides. Iwo jima and okinawa were tough to take and they are flyshit little islands compared to the main islands. The atom bombs saved millions of japanese and americans.
Agent Orange was invented in 1943. The US would have simply destroyed every single bit of cropland in Japan and watched them starve to death impotently, in loyal service to their emperor.
>Agent Orange
How would they get it to the fields? There were no choppers in use back then and any prop aircraft would have to go low, slow and straight. Japs still had reasonable number of AA guns and machineguns on the islands even at that point.
Jets were becoming a think plus I’m sure the Americans would come up with some turbo autisitc Wallace and gromit ass invention of doing it. Frick make moron bombs that disperse agent orange
The earliest Sikorsky choppers were starting to enter widesperad military use by the end of 1945, they could use those.
I bet they'd go full decisive tang strategic victory mode at that point
NAKADASHI!!!
Didnt jap students and officers attempt to take over the govt at least once? I remember reading about that as a kid but i do not recall any details other than a lot of people didnt like the cuck emperor
It just would have been a big long fricking brutal fight. America would have won eventually but it would have cost thousands of soldiers and thousands and thousands of civilians getting caught in the brutality of it.
No Japan wouldn't have literally fought till they were genocided because no one is that moronic (except maybe Russia).
I just want to see the British even goofier version of the Doolittle raid they had planned happen where RAF/RAAF pilots in Sea Mosquitos would take off from British carriers and attack the Japanese fleet at anchor in Kure with highball bouncing bombs then return and land on the carriers. The chances of the pilots actually landing was very small since the Sea Mosquito was only landed on a carrier once with great difficulty by Eric Brown who had more carrier deck landings than any pilot in history. The fleet air arm gave the RAF a detachment of old Blackburn Skua dive bombers to train their pilots on deck landing and the RAF crashed all of them during the training workup.
The highball wasn't the safest weapon either. Famously the USAAF was interested in equipping B-24s with them but in the first ever test with an inert bomb the highball hit the water, bounced straight up and took the entire tail assembly off the B-24 that dropped it causing it to spin in and crash. The US didn't test it any further after that.
Probably not. People knew the war was lost, they were physically starving to death and there weren't many fanatics left even within the government.
You'd still perhaps see millions of casualties but at best it would be the fragmented resistance the German people put to the Soviets in 1945. In reality the Japanese would surrender even without the bomb and probably before anyone sets foot on land just because with the Soviets there was no option of a negotiated peace.
I know it's a controversial source but still:
>The 1946 United States Strategic Bombing Survey in Japan, whose members included Paul Nitze,[97] concluded the atomic bombs had been unnecessary to win the war. They said:
>There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan's unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan's disaster. The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies. Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.
>Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.[98][99]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
At the hands of the Soviets, yes. The US wasn't ever calling Home Island contested landing bluffs after Iwo Jiima and Okinawa -- if it weren't for being absolutely riddled with Soviets the FDR (then Truman) administrations would have accepted reasonable surrender conditions in the nearly fricking year long diplomatic back and forth to that point. The nukes were about blowing the geostrategic load and facilitating Soviet partition of Europe (the Zero Sum Game narcissism of Pefidious Albion's wet dream, picrel)
>reasonable surrender conditions
We got reasonable surrender conditions.
>nooo you totally defeated us but we want
No, shut the frick up and surrender totally or be erased totally.
>muh commies
You're the fricking communist you subhuman shitstain. The only reason we kept the scum out of Japan was forcing their total surrender before the worthless red hordes could make a move.
It doesn't matter how many lives are saved. The bomb was a flex of mustles. The US embraced their hegemony destiny during WWII showing all the nations that they are not to be trifeled with and exert their dominance for the upcoming decates.
once the standing military and production centers were taken out, the program. could be shifted to systematic industrial depopulation.
I think 4 or 5 years of Chem and biological warfare could effectively wipe out 99.99 percent of the population
Not really, the fanatical image of the Japanese people in the war is over emphasized. There were absolutely suicidal attacks, but some of them were merely outdated tactics (the Japanese had success with them in 1905 and in China) or semi-rational responses to overwhelming enemy superiority (Kamikazes being essentially human guided AShM's). Japan lost about 6% of its prewar population which is hardly comparable to other countries like Germany, Poland, and the USSR. Japan also surrendered far earlier than the Nazis did. Their defeat was clearly inevitable but they were losing a battle of industrial might. The U.S. was destroying their navy and airforce, not obliterating entire divisions in pitched land battles (most Japanes military casualties came from China). Japan, like Germany was also relenetlessy, bombed and blockaded, but they surrendered unconditionally before the Americans even set foot on their home islands.
Japan, unlike Nazi Germany, had a head of state seperate from the head of government. This gave room for more plurality in Japanese politics and made possible the rather extraordinary decision for a world power to unconditionally surrender before near experiencing near total annihilation. By 1944 Tojo was out and more dovish factions were gaining sway in the cabinet. The Japanese were far less willing to go down with the ship compared to the third reich.
holy shit the allies really got fricked up before they won. Even excluding Russia, which I consider to have mostly deserved what they got, the casualties were horrendous. The Poles really got a raw deal and then there's Italy.
>Not really, the fanatical image of the Japanese people in the war is over emphasized
they literally had plans to chain people to the bottom of the sea and fed intravenously for several days so that they could strap mines to the bottom of landing crafts
and homeguard units issued claypot bombs and awls to their units because they fully expected to resist to the last man
japanese internal police reckoned they could sacrifice half their population before they hit their limit and they were willing to go that far before the soviet invasion of manchuria and the bombs
> but some of them were merely outdated tactics
the banzai charge was 100% a death or glory attack where the intent was not to go back home
they did not surrended en masse to the americans until literally the war was almost over at okinawa, japanese POWs only numbered in the low hundreds out of garrisons numbering in the tens of thousands
>Japan also surrendered far earlier than the Nazis did
VJ day is later than VE day, the entire battle of okinawa occurred after germany surrendered
> (most Japanes military casualties came from China)
japanese suffered about 450,000 deaths in china
the battle of the philippines alone almost reaches that number at 350k army deaths and 100k navy deaths
the central pacific adds another 100k army casualties, and burma another 150k against the british and australians
>the battle of the philippines alone almost reaches that number at 350k army deaths and 100k navy deaths
>the central pacific adds another 100k army casualties, and burma another 150k against the british and australians
1. Most of the Japanese deaths in the Philippines and Pacific were by starvation, malnutrition and disease through malnutrition after their supply lines by sea wee cut off and they couldn't scavenge from the jungles to make up for their shitty rations.
Hundreds of thousands of Japanese died of starvation in the American front.
2. Western sources also noted in 1940 that Japan routinely lied and underreported their casualties in China.
In the 1942 biological weapons attack in Zhejiang, the Japanese got sick from their own biological weapons and they tried to cover up their own casualties and claimed only 10,000 were sick and 1,700 died but everyone suspected the number was far higher.
Japan destroyed tons of military records in 1945 and cremated their dead.
The Japanese soldiers were drugged up on meth, and many of then wrote in their diaries how they wanted to bug out and surrender and how horrific it was for them.
Also their superiors would kill them for talking about surrender out loud.
Muslims in Mindanao and Pacific islanders in the Solomon Islands cut the heads, ears and livers off of Japanese soldiers.
please provide proof of these ridiculous claims
Fujioka Akiyoshi diary and Philipon meth.
>(the Japanese had success with them in 1905 and in China)
They didn't, the Japanese used human eave tactics at Nanshan and Port Arthur and were mowed down by Russian guns
The only reason why they won was because Stossel and Fok surrendered for no reason.
In China Japanese banzai charges were defeated in hand to hand combat by Chinese at Wuhan but the Japanese compensated by using poison gas after their initial forces were routed.
They should've just sent the test footage of the bomb along with photos of the size of the crater and politely asked them if they wanted to avoid getting all "This" involved in our little dispute.
Black person it took dropping it on them twice for them to actually surrender.
The second bomb came because the surrender didnt reach them in time
They would think it was a movie set, just like people deny the moon landings.
And even then there was a coup to kidnap the Emperor and force him to continue the war from the mountains.
That's what happens when your society gets turned into a jingoist war machine. You get morons who can only use their ape brains to try and turn your country into the war zone. "WE'LL JUST KEEP RETREATING UNTIL THEY GIVE UP!"
They considered just showing them but the concern was that they wouldn't be believed
Yes. Read about what happened with civilians in Okinawa. Threw themselves off of cliffs or blew themselves up with grenades. The Japanese were training everyone to be militia too, with bamboo spears. It was like what Hitler wanted Germany to do, either win or die.
The Red army suffered 2 million casualties in 1945 fighting the Germans in Germany, the Germans were fairly similar.
IMO the Japanese would have less will to fight the US army than the Germans did the Red army (the Germans preferred to be invaded by the western allies and fought much harder in the east), however it's a good reminder that armies can in fact fight tenaciously in a hopeless situation.
Japan was teetering on the brink of starvation and Operation Downfall would have been Okinawa multiplied by thousands. We would have seen large scale Japanese civilian suicide, IJA using civvies as human shields or levies, killing civilians out of hand for not wanting the former, general Jap rapey barbarism, and massed use of American firepower in urban and rural combat which would have included use of nuclear weapons against tactical targets. Add in the collpase of their agricultural system under a refugee exodus I believe Japan would have gone down to a medieval population level had they chosen to fight to the bitter end.
Even if the nukes only shortened the war by a week or two, the death toll in the Pacific was such that the utilitarian calculus works.
Though speaking as a vaguely lefty nogunz yuropoor I'm sympathetic to that copypasta that says the japs plain had it coming
The emperor was a pussy and everyone saw him as God.
The moment he was in real danger he would have surrendered.
Before that the high command would likely still lie to the emperor that they could still win.
So it depends when the US could catch the emperor, if they landed neat Tokio likely fast end. If they landed far from Tokio likely very hard fought.
This. They should have just captured or killed the emperor.
I want to peek at the alternate timeline where the Soviet Union landed a million Zergniks on Hokkaido. I tend to think that the Soviet conquest of Manchuria was the main reason why Japan hastily surrendered to the United States, but suppose they hadn't caved when they did. The US didn't have any more A bombs, and it would have taken months to reposition European Theater troops to the Pacific, plus the necessary preparatory naval shaping operations. It would have been something else to see the two factions that valued life the least trying to out human wave each other in norf Japan.
Holy shit go read The Rising Sun by John Toland or listen to Hardcore History on it
The Japanese would have had at least 1/4-2/3 of their nation wiped out before surrender