Another alternate history post:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

This one asks but a simple question: what would happen if the United States did not drop Fat Man and Little Boy in August 1945? A delay might be simpler by simply moving the start of the Manhattan Project down a year to 1942 so that the USA is required to invade Japan in 1945 where it did not in the real world.

The way I see it is that the Japanese leadership was not at all likely to surrender, and without the atomic bomb the USA will be hitting the Imperial Japanese in an Allied version of Operation Citadel: the landing zones are known for both sides and they've both made extensive preparations for it. I do think in the event of such a scenario that the Soviets would have done a lot more in Manchuria, probably gained all of Sakhalin and started blitzing through Hokkaido at the same time as the USA's punching through the Kanto Plain.

One thing that's always been an interesting hypothetical is what would happen assuming the IJA tries banzai charges right into the Soviet army of 1945 where it had enough firepower and callousness about human life to make good sport out of that kind of tactics. I see absolutely no reason that banzai charges right at the Soviet military are going to work any better than they did at the US military. The USA at the time was quite peachy keen on Axis civilian deaths, and the Soviets after 4 brutal years of warfare against Nazi Germany are hardly inclined to fight and die any more than they have to. If anything the situation might well end up reversed, the US Army making headlong attacks without real sense to and the Soviets accepting surrenders of cities that allow for it, using firepower to annihilate any that refuse.

Your thoughts? In this case the A-Bomb would probably be available by 1946 and for a real nightmare might have been used by both sides in whatever happens in the Korean peninsula.

Comments

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

"if the United States did not drop Fat Man and Little Boy in August 1945?"

My mom's brother would have gone straight to the Pacific invasion after having spent years fighting in Italy and Europe. We did drop it; he didn't go - and we had him for ten years until he died of physical and mental suffering related to his service.

I'm OK with that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

My grandfather was in just the right/wrong kind of job that would have gotten him killed by a kamikaze or Okka Bomb, meaning my dad would never have been born. My aunt would have been around, my grandmother probably would have married someone else, but my dad and I would not be here. That the atomic bomb, itself the stuff of nightmares, is why I'm here today in its own right is kind of nightmare fuel when you think about it.

Hence I understand fully where you're coming from.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

When someone goes off on a rant about the use of the atomic bombs at the end of WWII, I usually ask him or her if the past 65 years of Japanese history would have been better or worse with Hokkaido and possibly Honshu as far south as Yokohama behind the Iron Curtain.

The question usually gets a blank stare.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not to mention what would have happened if Japanese troops kept up suicide attacks against an enemy who would have had absolutely no qualms with mass butchery. The Soviets would have definitely gotten into Honshu as there's only so many suicide attacks one can hurl into their later-war tanks and Katyushas before one runs out of manpower and the Soviets get more and more of Japan.

If anything the realization of that might have triggered a civil war in Japan between a faction that now wants a rapid surrender and the diehards, which would only have extended US and Soviet military power further into Japan.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I wonder why Japan wasn't split up into four zones of occupation like Germany was, but I just assume it was logistics-- Japan was so far geographically removed from the other Allies and certainly the United States didn't want to see a Soviet occupation force anywhere on the Japanese islands.

[ygrii-blop.livejournal.com]

The U.S. government was quite forward-looking in the 1940s. They knew we were going to need all those cheap transistors in the '50s and '60s.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It was more because the Soviets only (re)-entered the war against Japan in August 1945 and Japan surrendered in September. In this scenario Japan is a US-Soviet occupation zone and the Soviet Union likely gets a counter to West Berlin. Whether that would reduce or amplify tensions in the Cold War depends on how much of a cynic one is about both sides.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Because the USA was able to fight Germany and Italy in Europe at the same time as it fought Japan single-handedly and kicked its ass from one end of the Pacific to the other. Stalin agreed to this rationale as that had been the reason for the occupation zones being divided in Europe after the war the way they were (incidentally he also kept his word with regard to the division of spheres of influence, where Hitler did nothing of the sort. The two were evil on different scales).

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> I wonder why Japan wasn't split up into four zones of occupation
> like Germany was

Because aside from some smallish naval battles and the seizure of some anachronistic European colonies very early in the war, the Pacific was an all American Show.

If the zones would have been set up according to respective allied contribution in theater, I guess Australia would have had a good argument to run a zone, but no one else.

[kgbman.livejournal.com]

When someone asks me that question, I always respond that I'm not a consequentialist. That always gets me a blank stare.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The problem is that the Soviets *did* destroy the last major center of Japanese military power, and against Ivan all those Banzai Charges were going to do was ensure progressively more of Japan is flying the Hammer and Sickle and singing "Glory to Comrade Stalin."

The Nazis had used the exact same tactics against the Soviet Union and that led to overwhelming victories, and this when the Soviets like the Western allies favored very good medium tanks against better and heavier-armed German heavy tanks. By 1945 Imperial Japanese equipment was light years behind everyone else and the Soviet army was very, very experienced at defeating enemies who persisted in battles with no common sense in so doing.

If anything the Soviets would move *faster* than the US Army did, its last experience with an enemy that persistent beyond all reason was the Petersburg Siege.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely philosophical stance to take from a comfy airchair 65 years after the fact.

But I doubt it makes a strong case for prolonging the war by relying solely on conventional weapons as a more moral stance than using the bomb to shock the Japanese leadership into consensus for surrender.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

what would happen if the United States did not drop Fat Man and Little Boy in August 1945?

We'd have a lot more dead American soldiers.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And probably Japan would have joined Korea in the list of countries that were direct battlegrounds for World War II. An interesting question would be if the Japanese try to claim the Ainu are a "Soviet" ethnic group to avoid any of the consequences of their Japanization policies postwar....

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

In preparation for any major action (like D-Day, or the prospective invasion of Japan), the Armed Forces have made a practice of stocking up on things they'll need, including stuff like body bags and Purple Hearts. In 1945, they made sure to have enough Purple Hearts to go around for those whom they expected to get wounded and/or killed in the invasion.

They ran out of Purple Hearts made for that invasion, a few years ago in Iraq. Yep. Korea, Vietnam, all the brushfires here and there, and Gulf War I didn't add up to the body count they anticipated in '45. It took Iraq and Afghanistan to finish off the stash.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

They were very likely right to anticipate that, too. Even assuming Japan has a messy collapse analogous to late World War I Russia Japanese troops had a well-deserved reputation for prolonging battles long past the point a Western army would have cut its losses and retreat. Given like Fall Zitadelle both sides knew well where the attacks would fall the results would be a grotesque national last act for Imperial Japan and possibly a social upheaval akin to 1871 France.

The postwar era would be far, far messier.

[dierdrae.livejournal.com]

Holy shit.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

dierdrae, it gets even better. American-to-Japanese casualty ratios varied anywhere from 1:2 in some battles, to 1:5. Overall, counting things where we hammered them and didn't sustain substantial losses, it got around 1:22.

In other words, if we had NOT dropped the bombs, we'd have wound up exterminating a good-sized chunk of the Japanese population.

Operation Downfall (http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_downfall3.html) this was the first likely-looking article from my Google search.

[ETA] I was wrong, in my preceding post. I said they'd run out of Purple Hearts recently. They're still using the 1945 ones in Iraq and Afghanistan ().

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

japan would have become another cuba, with a 1960s japanese missle crisis as well as a cuban one

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

More like another Korea, with the twist that the more populous part of Japan would be the Soviet part where the more devastated part would be the one ruled by the USA.

[ghoststrider.livejournal.com]

I think if the atomic bomb wasn't used, there really wouldn't be a Japan existing today.

Think about it. The Japanese of 1945 were jumping off of cliffs and committing ritual suicide so they wouldn't have to face the American barbarians (who were, in some cases.)

If we invaded and put boots on the ground, I fear that the Japanese may have just fought or suicided themselves to near obliteration. I'm sure something would survive--not everyone would kill themselves--but a whole lot more would have died. Japan might not have even been a state post-WW2; in our timeline, it regained sovereignty in 1952 (IIRC), but if this state of affairs happened, it might not have regained sovereignty until 1972. Shit, it could have just remained a US protectorate until now!

As odd as it sounds, I think the atomic bomb saved many more Japanese than it killed. It shocked the Japanese leadership into accepting defeat, and without that shock they may have kept banzai-ing in the futile hope of victory.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You're forgetting the Soviet invasion was a guarantee without the Bomb. The USA wasn't interested in trying it without Soviet help, and in the case of Operations Downfall and Coronet the USA's in the position of facing the majority of Japanese resistance where the Soviets are facing the dregs and moving on against limited pockets of fanatical resistance.

Imperial Japanese troops had not the quality of firepower to halt the Soviet Union of 1939, and against T-55s and Katyushas they'd have perhaps one big Banzai charge and then the Soviets roll right over them.

[ghoststrider.livejournal.com]

In that case, I will edit my statement to add "And we wouldn't have any anime to enjoy."

[ccr1138.livejournal.com]

I can't help but connect it personally to my father-in-law who was part of the coming invasion fleet made moot by the bomb. They were expecting 80% casualties, so it's likely he would have died at age 17. His four sons and five grandsons would never have been born. That's a huge impact to the world just from one ordinary life right there.