#8
Post
by R Leonard » 20 Apr 2018, 04:55
Big bad Americans drop the big nasty bombs.
Okay, let's say it never happens if it makes some people so outraged or squeamish.
The Japanese were NOT going to surrender. This the Allies knew, they'd been reading the Japanese diplomatic mail since the late 1930's, so any nonsense about negotiating through the Soviets or OSS types in Switzerland was exactly that, nonsense. No one in the Foreign Ministry had the authority to make concrete agreements, no one in Moscow or Berne had authority to speak for the Japanese government on actual termination of hostilities, it was all smoke and mirrors and from the messages back and forth (if one were bother to look them up which one can do for themselves) 'twas just so much weaseling. Not to mention the Soviets were just leading the Japanese on, they were not going to lift a finger to help the Japanese end the war, they wanted their piece of the pie. And, of course, as we know, the Japanese foreign ministry was not running the show, the Army and the Navy ran the show and would throw the foreign ministry under the bus in a heart beat (read: have them taken out and shot) if they thought there were, indeed, serious negotiations with anyone.
So, had the Japanese wanted to surrender, all they had to do was say so, to the people who mattered, the Allied forces closing in on their islands . . . they did not.
It is now July 1945. For apparently humanitarian reasons, you, in charge, have made the decision NOT to use the bombs. That leaves you three choices: (1) total blockade, (2) invasion, (3) both. Obviously an invasion would be proceeded by a blockade, it only a question of for how long. Meanwhile, the 5 or so targets reserved for the A-bombs get released to the 20th AF for the firebomb program, so within a couple of weeks they, like Tokyo and so many others, will, literally, be toast . . . that accomplished a lot did it not? Now they've used up all the big targets, so they'll start working down the pecking order, which by the way, absent the A-bombs was the plan all along . . . the firebombings were not going to stop.
If the choice is blockade only, the longer the blockade, the smaller the targets for B-29s become. Meanwhile there are carriers ranging up and down the Japanese coast striking with impunity, three days on and two days off for replenishment. Soon the USN would have enough carriers on hand to split the force in half and there would truly be two fleets, not just in name but in being . . . carrier strikes every day that weather allows. And AAF assets, heavy bombers and long range fighters were already swarming out of Okinawa and Iwo Jima that summer and their numbers would only increase; even the RAF had heavy bombers soon to be on the way. There is not a thing the Japanese can do about it, nothing, not a damn thing.
And let us not forget a couple of other things . . . first of all, people were dying in areas of China, SE Asia, & the Moluccas, just to name a few, where the Japanese still held sway, at a rate of about 30,000 a month. What about them? Oh, they aren't Japanese so we don't worry about them? They don't count? What, you don't like Tonkinese, Malays, and Chinese? That's interesting.
Secondly, what does "Blockade" mean? For a country, such as Japan, without the means to feed its own population when times are good, it means starvation, plain and simple, so let us call a spade a spade. It would not be a blockade, it would be deliberate starvation of a population on a national scale, especially since, though the Allies had not counted on it, there was a massive failure of the domestic rice crop in 1945. Of course it really did not matter, after mid-July there was no coal coming out of Hokkaido since TF38 destroyed the shipping to do so; nothing to cook, nothing to cook it with, and by the way, Japan gets cold in the winter and without coal the only thing to keep them warm would be the residue from incendiaries. Anyone want to cry about that? Starvation, you know, first the babies, then a race between children and old people, I think the old people will die out first, then after the children, the women, all in order. Anyone who thinks the army would give up its rations or allow any foodstuffs to go to non-essentials (read: civilians) better guess again . . . you only to look at how the army treated their own civilians on Saipan and Okinawa for the answer to that question.
Sometimes it seems that an invasion after a long, say 12 months, starvation blockade, might even be a relief, but at that point, why put Allied ground troops at risk? Wait another 6 months and the Japanese army would be in no condition to stop a crab from coming ashore, much less troops. Small consolation to the 500,000 people who have died under Japanese control in the 18 months of the meantime, but its seems some only worry about the Japanese . . . or what would now be left of them.
So, no bombs, no invasion (that way we don't have to weigh the expert opinions of academics 70 plus years later against the opinions of those who were facing the actual prospect at the time and did so for a living). Just a nice tidy naval blockade, nothing in, nothing out, nothing along the coast and for quite a distance inland, operating under a silver and blue umbrella that would eventually be reduced to shooting up hand carts because that was all that was left. So, which is a better idea? For the Allies, a blockade is a pretty good idea, it has its attractions, a cost of time, of course, but not as many bodies as invasion; for the Japanese, most assuredly a very, very, very bad idea. And to the people to the south and east, since the bombs were such a bad idea, I guess they just become the cost of doing business, eh? But, hey, they aren't Japanese so the folks who cry over the bombs tend to dismiss them altogether.
Again, had the Japanese wanted to surrender, all they had to do was say so. One might note they had no problem reaching out after Nagasaki so it was not like they had no clue. But, alack and alas, they did not. Had they wanted to surrender after Hiroshima, all they had to do was say so, they did not. Sorry, but there seemed from the Allies side to be a little impatience with the Japanese government's refusal to cede the issue even after specific warnings, thus, a bomb, and when that bomb apparently did not get their attention, another. It was never a matter of "let's go kill everyone in Hiroshima" or "Oh, that worked well, let's do the same at Nagasaki (or more correctly, I believe, Kokura, as Nagasaki was a secondary target). No, it was Japanese had failed to respond to Potsdam, failed to reach out on their own, so drop the bomb, get their attention. They are still were not paying attention, so drop the second bomb. Now they are paying attention.
Personally, while I have no angst over the bombs, either of them, I tend to agree with FAdm's King and Nimitz that a blockade would eventually, eventually, force a surrender, but, then again, at what cost, to the Japanese or to the people under their thumbs to the south and east? Bottom line was that the bombs, both of them, were the fastest way to end the war, period. And if you want to cry about someone getting vaporized in the blink of an eye, I suspect that might be a little more merciful than being slowly parboiled in a drainage or sewage ditch during a fire storm.
So, somebody pick, A-Bombs, starvation, or starvation and invasion. Then, presuming the bombs are not the choice convince me that there would be lesser civilian loss of life from either the latter two than from the former. Anyone who thinks there was really a better solution than the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is living the same dream world as the Japanese Imperial General Staff with it collective dream of ultimate victory.