Would the Allies have won World War II if the USA did not take part?

[inboundpaper]

Operation downfall was the name of the planned invasion of Japan. The plan was to hit the beaches on the southern part of the island because those beaches were the only good place to land our soldiers at. The Japanese knew this and were in the act of moving over 90,000 men to reinforce the 20,000 already stationed there. D-day would have been a cake walk compared to the battle that would have happened...

conservative estimates by our leadership put American casualties at 750k and Japanese casualties at over 10 MILLION (and that's if the Russians hadn't invaded and burned the fuck uot of everything like they did in east Germany). In preparation 500,000 purple hearts were made. We haven't needed to make new ones since. Thats right, every purple heart given to an american soldier from the end of WW2 all the way up to the present was made in 1945. and there is still over 120,000 left.

Japan was training women and children to make and use bamboo spears and slingshots for christ sake.
Churchill himself said it would take a million soldiers lives to take the island and that it would be the hardest battle ever fought.

There is a really good comic that portrays this what if scenario, and I really wish I remembered the name. :\

[semaphore]

Once again, as been stated many times, its hard, and some-what pointless to argue the "what could have happened". No way to go back in time and test out the other options.

While true, historians have analysed the causes of what actually happened to determine which are important and which are only incidental.

But the pacific theater was certainly far more then just a few islands and China (given China was one of the main areas of focus.

No it wasn't. The entire Pacific Theatre was only opened because Japan wanted to sustain its war effort in China. It was always secondary.

At the beginning of America's and Japan's involvement, Japan had the largest, strongest navy in the world. It was a huge threat at the time and people that say Japan was never a powerful country at the time are greatly discrediting them.

That is blatantly not true. Both the Royal Navy and the United States Navy were much bigger than the Imperial Japanese Navy. That is why Japan had to risk it all on a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour (which was successful beyond Japanese General Headquarter's wildest dreams). The Imperial Navy was arguably qualitatively superior because of its early use of aircraft carriers, but it is ridiculous to claim that the USN or RN was weaker than the IJN.

The US was faced with a very difficult decision. I have gone through plenty of history classes myself, but I am not surprised if each country has their own take on it. From what I have learned though, the Japanese were no where near surrendering.

Your understanding is wrong and sound alot like popular historical misconceptions rather than actual history (high school history does not count).

The Japanese cabinet was discussing how best to make peace as early as 1944. The strategy at the time was that they must acheive one decisive victory first in order to negotiate from a position of strength. As I stated earlier, remember that Japanese overall strategy was always to surrender her gains in the Pacific to secure its designs in its primary goal, China. After the destruction of the Imperial Navy, it became apparent that this was unachievable, at which point they began attempting to surrender on the condition of retaining the Emperor.

A proposal was even transmitted to the US government, but was dismissed because the Allies demanded a unconditional surrender. Which was unacceptable as the Japanese government regards the monarchy as a fundamental pillar of the Japanese state.

They were training their civilians to fight. Taking Japan by land would probably not have worked, certainly without many many more losses then what the two nukes caused. Even after the two bombs were dropped, the Japanese military wanted to still fight (a good example of how determined the Japanese people were). How would you suggest to break that determination? Do you have any clue or insight to the samurai mindset? They were still ready to fight, against all odds, even after the nuclear strikes. It was the emperor that was finally able to convince their military to stop and surrender.

I have already explained this to you. They were already trying to surrender. The government ministers wanted to surrender only on the condition that the monarchy stays. The decision that the Emperor eventually made was not just to surrender, but rather to surrender without an explicit guarauntee.

Even after the two bombs were dropped, the Japanese military wanted to still fight (a good example of how determined the Japanese people were).

That is completely retarded. The most fanatical elements of Japanese military is NOT in any way whatsoever a reflection of the Japanese people in general. That's like saying the SS is a good example of how the German people felt.

They certainly weren't on the verge of surrendering as you state.

The fact that they were suing for peace says they were.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two major power hubs of Japan, both for production and Military. They were strategic choices. It wasn't for the purpose of wiping out the Japanese populace. It was completely for crippling their ability to continue to fight.

They were strategic choices in the sense of killing as many civilian targets as possible while having a flimsy excuse of military value. Allied strategic policy (a fact that was carefully concealed from the public and the legislature) was to kill as many civilians as possible to demolish the enemy's will to fight. This was carried out against both German and Japanese cities. The Firebombing of Tokyo burnt more than 100,000 civilians to death - almost as destructive as an atomic bomb.

People that jump so quickly on the hate evil American barbarian bandwagon often are leaving or negating a lot of facts that were very crucial and very real in that time period. It might not have been the right decision, and it certainly was horrible.

It is possible to criticise a decision by American leadership without hating America. Similarly, it is also possible to talk about American history without inventing laughable reasons to justify every single thing the United States has done.

Until you prove me otherwise, I will still say you are wrong. Everything I have read, in history class, books, and online, the Japanese were determined to fight till the end. Even after the nukes were dropped. It took the result of the nukes and the Emperor of Japan himself to convince the Japanese people to lay down their arms.

I already repeatedly explained that the Japanese government was seeking peace from the start. You do not simulatenously fight to the death while exploring ways to make peace. The real question is, what makes you think that Japanese propaganda of everyone dying should be believed? It is human nature to want to live. Just as it is the nature of war to proclaim that you will fight to the last man even though you don't actually want to see your entire nation wiped out.

That they surrendered at all is undeniable proof that they are not in fact willling to actually fight to the death.

---------- Post added 2012-03-30 at 02:39 AM ----------

TY. I love history.
the thinking was also that Operation downfall could have extended the war all the way into 1947 because of the slow progress that would be made. with this extra time and causalities, the baby boomer generation may never have happened, the Japanese economy, culture and, society would have been utterly obliterated, and the 2 strongest economies of the second half of the 20th centuries would have been significantly less powerful.

That assuming Japan could continue fighting after a successful invasion of Japan proper. Or that the Allies will continue to demand unconditional surrender after Operation Downfall fails catastrophically because the majority of Japanese forces in the Home Islands were being concentrated exactly where the Allies was going to invade. Either way, it stands to reason that the war will end.

People tend to forget this, but Japan remains the only great power in history to surrender while her armies are intact, and before her homeland was even invaded. In some sense, Japan surrendered far more easily than almost everyone else. Rome did not surrender until the Italian peninsula was essentially overran. Even the French did not surrender until after her capital has fallen and her elite forces were wiped out in the field. I don't think we can really extrapolate fanatical Japanese military action in the Pacific (where they had no where to retreat to) to the entire population, nor should we accept their propaganda at face value. Remember, it never actually reached their homes. Even the Japanese government were aware that they could not sustain the war effort for much longer if conditions do not improve.

Before someone mentions it, Okinawa was historically a Chinese vassal state that was conquered by a Japanese warlord during the Edo perior. It was not seen to be part of Japan and Okinawans were not regarded as Japanese for most of modern history. They were only beginning to be integrated into the Japanese Empire after the Meiji Restoration. Even in post war years, the Japanese government was happy to let US keep Okinawa as a giant military base, and it was only local resentment to American rule that foster a new Japanese identity amongst the Okinawan population.

[semaphore]

Its ok. I understand you have a biased, ill-informed, non-factual view. By the way you discuss it, its apparent you are set in it despite how history played out.

Ad hominem attacks. Classy.

Just because something doesn't seem to make sense to you, does not mean it didn't happen. It just means that you don't know the full circumstances - which you clearly don't. And rather than actually paying attention to what I have been repeatedly saying, you take bits and pieces out of my post, chopped off important qualifications and context, then bash the resulting strawman.

Case in point:

The silliest part is your arguing that it makes no sense that the Japanese were willing to fight to the death and trying to surrender at the same time.

I argued no such thing. That is your imaginary strawman talking. I said the Japanese were willing to make peace, but they have certain conditions (chief of which is, for the last time, retaining the Emperor), and were prepared to hold out until the Allies agreed to their conditions. My other point is that just because some Japanese military units were willing to fight to death (cultural traditions) does not mean that all Japanese are therefore willing to fight to their last breath.

I could continue this with you back and forth, but I have the feeling it would be a effort of frustration due to you arguing from a very set, but wrong standpoint.

My views are not set. You simply have not made a compelling arguement. Ignoring facts that doesn't suit your view is not convincing.

You don't train you children and women to fight while at the same time aim for surrender.
You don't start using your own civilians lives as missiles while aiming for a surrender.

More strawmans. You do if you are aiming to force your enemeis into accepting a conditional surrender, which is my actual point.

You don't still have the desire to fight after major cities have been wiped out if your aim is surrender.

You mean like Germany?

No, the Imperial navy wasn't so strong after the allied forces were pushing them back, but before Pearl Harbor, it was one of the strongest in the world. America's navy was built up during the war. America started with a much smaller fighting force then it ended with due to the mass of production that was dedicated to the war effort.

Don't move the goal post. "One of the strongest" is massively different from "the strongest".

Also, you are demonstrating an incredibly poor understanding of pre-war military strengths here. You are right that the USN started the war much smaller than it ended with (really a no brainer) - but that was still much bigger than the Japanese navy. While United States was able to produce warships on an unprecedented scale during the war, it was also massively outproducing Japan before the war. These are easily verifiable facts. It is funny and sad that despite your feigned indignation at me being "ill-informed", you yourself are utterly incapable of even admitting that possibility that you might be wrong, when 5 minutes on google will tell you that you are.

Just because the Emperor was seeking peace, didn't mean the military was happy with it, even after the nukes.

Another strawman. I know that there are fanatical elements in the military who refused to accept peace, I never said otherwise. You imagined that in your head. While it may make you feel better to pretend I said something wrong, that doesn't make it true. It just makes it yet another strawman.

What I actually said is that the Japanese leadership wanted to make peace. But I guess it's a lot easier when you can treat the entire Japanese nation as one homogenuous hive mind instead of dealing with actual historical facts or human nature in general.

I liked your underlined part though. Shows just how much yo u are missing it. It took facing undeniable defeat to finally remove the determination from Japan's military and even then, weather you want to believe it or not, there were still drive in the military to persuade the Emperor to not surrender. It was a very strong mindset and not one easily changed.

And this paragraph exposed just how idiotic your entire argument has been. The basis of everything you said is that the Japanese were all determined to fight to their deaths. If that is actually true, then why would the lose this "determination" at all? Because the answer is that clearly, they weren't truly willing to all die. Some are, to be sure, but most of the country were not.

The Japanese government knew it was facing imminent defeat. No matter how much you want to pretend that all of Japan was exactly the same as a small group of fanatics ignorant of what is happening (an argument as moronic as saying that all of Germany were the same as the most hardlined Nazis), it was not true. Just because you ignore any facts that doesn't fit your pre-conceived views, does not mean that everyone are like you.

You can keep going along blissfully denying reality.

That seemed to be exactly what you've been doing, both when it comes to what actually did happen historically, and my posts.

I am not going to argue weather the nukes were the right decision or not.

You'd only be arguing with yourself if you did. But then again, all you've been doing is making up strawmans and pretending its what I said, so I guess you were arguing with yourself all along anyway. Your entire post is replete with strawmans and you pretending I said something I didn't.

[Kasierith]

Ya, just adding my two cents in... but the Japanese citizens never had such a "samurai spirit." Japanese culture is long and complex, and uniquely independent from the rest of the world because unlike European nations which constantly exchanged ideas, the Japanese stood alone. Class differences have always been significant there; its a large part of their mentality that there are a few people who are the wisest and strongest, and that the best thing to do as a people is to stand behind those who are the best. This mentality was carried for hundreds of generations, until the introduction of gunpowder; quickly realizing the effect of having a weapon able of making a common peasant able to best the greatest samurai warrior, the feudal lords quickly banned it. When Japan was forced to open up to the rest of the world, it completely rocked the hierarchy, because it was based entirely on classes. Japan then had to struggle with impressing upon its citizens the might of the leadership... the Russo-Japanese war was as much to put on a show for its people as much as to show the world Japan's strength (which, ironically, the ignoring of which was one of the reasons why the Japanese attacked the US).

The point of all this is that, in order to keep society as it was, the Japanese could not admit to their people that they were losing. Even when they were being bombed, the Japanese citizens were being told they were winning the war. They were being deluded by a government intent on maintaining control. But when two cities were wiped off the face of the earth... at that point, it become a lost cause

Oh, and while the line of Japanese emperors may be the longest living royal line in existence today... the emperor really hasn't been influential beyond being the figurehead of the people. Even if he wanted peace, he did not control the military. Leadership has been divided in Japan for a long time

[Deleted]

I
I could continue this with you back and forth, but I have the feeling it would be a effort of frustration due to you arguing from a very set, but wrong standpoint. As I said, as well as others you chose to ignore, the Japanese were prepared for all out war.

You don't train you children and women to fight while at the same time aim for surrender.

You don't start using your own civilians lives as missiles while aiming for a surrender.

You don't still have the desire to fight after major cities have been wiped out if your aim is surrender.

Sure you do if you aim is a conditional surrender. To stop fighting and go home and have a unconditional surrender as the imperial German did in WW1 did was not a "good" option...

EDIT: semaphore was faster.....

[semaphore]

You seem to be getting awfully worked up over this. Maybe take a deep breath? Its interesting how you have presented your view, pretty much to the extent of "I already told you!" as if you have some incredible out-reaching authority on the topic...

No, that's just how people generally respond when you ignore everything they said.

Its foolish to argue with his points

Except you haven't argued with my points. All you did was make straw mans and ignore my actual points.

and you have restated the same points you have already stated in a previous post

Points you still haven't addressed. No, building strawmans to attack is not the same as addressing my points.

I leave you with your 'strawman' statement, the old standard fall back counter for anyone that clearly doesn't have anything left to really state.

You haven't responded to any of my actual points. What's the point in me stating anything new if you haven't even addressed what I already said? To get more pointless whine posts from you like this one?

If you want to take my points, butcher it, bash it and proclaim yourself victorious, then don't cry foul when your blatant fallacies gets pointed out to you.

It was inappropriate of me to speak up, thinking this was a discussion about history

Then discuss history. This entire post of yours is nothing but whining about me not agreeing with you. But don't worry, since you clearly have no intention of actually responding to anything I actually said and just want to whine, I won't bother replying to your future whining. From your last few posts, it's obvious that you're not going to say anything constructive to move the conversation forward anyway.

[Deleted]

How could the U.S.A. resisted to join the war?? They are addicted to it....

Kidding Aside: Well let's assume the U.S.A. remained totally passive.

"Das Dritte Reich" was extremely spreaded by the time the U.S.A. started interfering. It also had hundreds of millions of foreigners under control.
If you look at the past all these huge expansions (Napoleon, Alexander) never had a long endurance. You just can't control such huge areas and so many people.
So I guess that it would have extinguished by now. The inhabitants of the invaded countries would have rebelled against the nazis.

Hitler was also a "little bit" megalomaniacal (the English word sounds funny xD). He wasn't aware how much his armies shrinked over time. The movie "Downfall" is quite accurate. His power made him insane (if he wasn't totally insane from the start).
That lead to him fighting on too many and too widespreads fronts. The eastern borders were like 2000 kilometres long. Great Britain was also quite tough and hard to invade. So Hitlers defeat was inevitable.

Furthermore Nazigermany was based on the cult about the "Führer" (ü not u :P). If Hitler had died (due to an assasination, accident or to a natural death) the organisation would have fallen apart at once.

I also don't like to hear U.S. Americans bragging about being the heroes in WW2. The Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a huge crime against humanity!
(Not saying that the nazicrimes were better or worse, they are both inhuman!)

I never understood, why they had to throw it on a city full of civilians. They could have demonstrated the power in the inhabitated countryside. I also never understood, why they didn't give Hirohito some time to surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima. By the time the bombing of Nagasaki take place the officials still had no clue what happened to Hiroshima, as the communication system was destroyed by the bombing and it was really hard to believe what happened there.

Sorry ran off the track somehow, just wanted to throw my opinions wildly around me.

(Warning: Go easy on the negative, national stereotyping. It's not appreciated here and is worthy of infraction.)

[Defengar]

How could the U.S.A. resisted to join the war?? They are addicted to it....

Kidding Aside: Well let's assume the U.S.A. remained totally passive.

"Das Dritte Reich" was extremely spreaded by the time the U.S.A. started interfering. It also had hundreds of millions of foreigners under control.
If you look at the past all these huge expansions (Napoleon, Alexander) never had a long endurance. You just can't control such huge areas and so many people.
So I guess that it would have extinguished by now. The inhabitants of the invaded countries would have rebelled against the nazis.

Hitler was also a "little bit" megalomaniacal (the English word sounds funny xD). He wasn't aware how much his armies shrinked over time. The movie "Downfall" is quite accurate. His power made him insane (if he wasn't totally insane from the start).
That lead to him fighting on too many and too widespreads fronts. The eastern borders were like 2000 kilometres long. Great Britain was also quite tough and hard to invade. So Hitlers defeat was inevitable.

Furthermore Nazigermany was based on the cult about the "Führer" (ü not u :P). If Hitler had died (due to an assasination, accident or to a natural death) the organisation would have fallen apart at once.

I also don't like to hear U.S. Americans bragging about being the heroes in WW2. The Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a huge crime against humanity!
(Not saying that the nazicrimes were better or worse, they are both inhuman!)

I never understood, why they had to throw it on a city full of civilians. They could have demonstrated the power in the inhabitated countryside. I also never understood, why they didn't give Hirohito some time to surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima. By the time the bombing of Nagasaki take place the officials still had no clue what happened to Hiroshima, as the communication system was destroyed by the bombing and it was really hard to believe what happened there.

Sorry ran off the track somehow, just wanted to throw my opinions wildly around me.

we wanted unconditional surrender, and we wanted the shit to end before russia got involved so we wouldn't have to share the island with them like we did with germany (which turned out GREAT for germany didnt it... oh wait... no...)

[Deleted]

Ah, how could I be so dumb. You had to take ressources from your ally. So you get all the cake and not only the half.

Let's kill 300.000 people so we can loot their bodies...

Yeah, well, the wall was not that great, but right now Germany is in a pretty good shape.
At least i prefer it the way it went. Better than having Mannheim and Ludwigsburg leveled to the ground.

Also you didn't answer why the bomb couldn't be thrown on inhabitated ground (where the Japanese people could still see the power). I guess such a demonstration and the announcement that the next one would be thrown on a city would have led to your unconditional surrender as well.

But that's just my opinion. Testing an atomic bomb on a city full of people is as sick as the things Mengele did in Auschwitz.

[Defengar]

Ah, how could I be so dumb. You had to take ressources from your ally. So you get all the cake and not only the half.

Let's kill 300.000 people so we can loot their bodies...

Yeah, well, the wall was not that great, but right now Germany is in a pretty good shape.
At least i prefer it the way it went. Better than having Mannheim and Ludwigsburg leveled to the ground.

Also you didn't answer why the bomb couldn't be thrown on inhabitated ground (where the Japanese people could still see the power). I guess such a demonstration and the announcement that the next one would be thrown on a city would have led to your unconditional surrender as well.

But that's just my opinion. Testing an atomic bomb on a city full of people is as sick as the things Mengele did in Auschwitz.

we needed to show the japanse we were not dicking around, and we only had 2 bombs at the time, and a third would have taken another 9 months to make. it took 2 bombs on populated area's to get them to surrender on our terms, so it turned out great.

Also, your acting like the japanese didn't do anything bad in the war...

a few of the big ones...

Bataan death march: 0ver 70000 thousand POW's marched scores of miles without rest and the japanese killed anyone they chose, the roads were lined with the heads severed by katana's wielded by grinning Japanese officers.

rape of nanking: 300k dead, and countless hundreds of thousands raped, wounded, and made homeless. It permanently scarred chinese and japanese relations.

unit 731...: the atrocities committed by these people were unspeakable... sociopaths were actually recruited to be doctors and over 200k chinese citizens (called monkey's on official forms because the Japanese considered the chinese an inferior race) and thousands of American PoW's were killed in gruesome medical experiments, many committed just to satisfy the doctors obscene curiosities...
this scene from "the man behind the sun" illustrates some of the experiments they liked to do... not for the weak of heart...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXpxjRoZWZk
surgeries without anesthesia to "keep results clean", removing peoples stomachs and attaching their intestines to their esophagus's to see how long it would take them to starve, exposing people to plague, making people walking with weights until they died of exhaustion, drink salt water until mad and then dead...

all this wouldn't be so bad if japan would admit to these things. Many violently deny the rape of Nanking even happened and its even a banned subject in some parts of the country, same thng with unit 731. it never makes an appearance in media, schools, or discussion there...

[PizzaSHARK]

I never understood, why they had to throw it on a city full of civilians. They could have demonstrated the power in the inhabitated countryside. I also never understood, why they didn't give Hirohito some time to surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima. By the time the bombing of Nagasaki take place the officials still had no clue what happened to Hiroshima, as the communication system was destroyed by the bombing and it was really hard to believe what happened there.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were major manufacturing centers for the IJA. By blasting Hiroshima and Nagasaki off the face of the planet, not only are the Americans displaying overwhelming force to their enemy (if we can eliminate two cities this casually, how long do you think you'll be safe in your little bunker in Tokyo?), but they're also wiping out a large portion of their infrastructure, dramatically lessening their ability to continue fighting even if the display of force wasn't enough to force them to surrender.

[semaphore]

we wanted unconditional surrender, and we wanted the shit to end before russia got involved so we wouldn't have to share the island with them like we did with germany (which turned out GREAT for germany didnt it... oh wait... no...)

This is an after-the-fact justification. Russian involvement was something the Allies pushed for in Potsdam.

we needed to show the japanse we were not dicking around, and we only had 2 bombs at the time, and a third would have taken another 9 months to make. it took 2 bombs on populated area's to get them to surrender on our terms, so it turned out great.

Actually even Allied military commanders (Eisenhower and Nimitz being notable examplea) of the time felt that the nuclear weapons were unnecessary to get Japan to surrender. Also the Western Allies tend to downplay or outright ignore the impact of the Soviet Union's entry on Japanese psyche. It's hardly justifiable to say that killing 300,000 civilians is "turning out great" by any means.

I'd say the use of nuclear weapons was more of a political decision designed to cow the Soviet Union in the New World Order. Didn't really work out very well, but it's an understandable decision from Truman, the inexperienced diplomat that he was.

all this wouldn't be so bad if japan would admit to these things.

Japan did.

Many violently deny the rape of Nanking even happened and its even a banned subject in some parts of the country, same thng with unit 731. it never makes an appearance in media, schools, or discussion there...

No it isn't. It is a mandated subject in history textbooks. You can argue that some textbooks whitewashes the severity of Japanese war crimes, but the idea that it's a "banned subject" is completely baseless.

[Deleted]

"Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?"

This a quote of a scientist playing a major role in the Manhattan Project. Someone who helped building the bombs. And it makes quite clear: The winner writes history. I think this is selfexplanatory.

You said you had "only" two bombs.

-> Throw one in the open, trying not harm but to impress.
-> Threaten them with another bomb, this time on a city, wait for them to surrender to your conditions
-> If they don't do that, you still have the other bomb, which would give Hirohito the rest.

That would have been a way more human solution. I bet it wouldn't have come to the third part.

I know that Japanese soldiers were not better than soldiers of other countries. It was always like that and it will always be like that. Just think of Abu Ghuraib or this maniac shooting 16? people, some of them kids. But that doesn't justify to throw bombs on city full of civilians, because it was not them, who committed the crimes. 90% of the victims were civilians. And about 10% of all the dead people were Korean prisoners of war. So you also kil the people who suffered from the war crimes of the Japanese people. That's somehow ridiculous.

Answering crimes against humanity with other crimes of humanity ist just plain wrong!

No it isn't. It is a mandated subject in history textbooks. You can argue that some textbooks whitewashes the severity of Japanese war crimes, but the idea that it's a "banned subject" is completely baseless.

That is the same with U.S. American education. The teacher tells you, how the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified and you accept it.

Edit: To relativize it. When I had WWII in history I had the same discussion with my teacher back then. It lasted like 30 minutes. He also couldn't not convince me, that the bombings were the right solution. So this bias is everwhere. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think humanity says that such bombings are bad. I would love it, if everyone would try to see both sides of the stories (not only this one).

[Defengar]

The major waves of Japanese treatment of these events have ranged from total cover-up during the war, confessions and documentation by the Japanese soldiers during the 1950s and 1960s, minimization of the extent of the Nanking Massacre during the 1970s and 1980s, official Japanese government distortion and rewriting of history during the 1980s, and total denial of the occurrence of the Nanking Massacre by some government officials in 1990.[89]

The debate concerning the massacre took place mainly in the 1970s. During this time, the Chinese government's statements about the event were attacked by the Japanese because they were said to rely too heavily on personal testimonies and anecdotal evidence. Aspersions were cast regarding the authenticity and accuracy of burial records and photographs presented in the Tokyo War Crime Court, which were said to be fabrications by the Chinese government, artificially manipulated or incorrectly attributed to the Nanking Massacre.[90]

During the 1970s, Katsuichi Honda wrote a series of articles for the Asahi Shimbun on war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers during World War II (such as the Nanking Massacre).[91] The publication of these articles triggered a vehement response from Japanese right-wingers regarding the Japanese treatment of the war crimes. In response, Shichihei Yamamoto[92] and Akira Suzuki[93] wrote two controversial yet influential articles which sparked the negationist movement.

On August 15, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the Surrender of Japan, the Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama gave the first clear and formal apology for Japanese actions during the war. He apologized for Japan's wrongful aggression and the great suffering that it inflicted in Asia. He offered his heartfelt apology to all survivors and to the relatives and friends of the victims. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. The emperor offered his condolences and expressed the hope that such atrocities would never be repeated. Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking, criticized Murayama for not providing the written apology that had been expected. She said that the people of China "don't believe that an... unequivocal and sincere apology has ever been made by Japan to China" and that a written apology from Japan would send a better message to the international community.

In May 1994, Justice Minister Shigeto Nagano called the Nanjing Massacre a "fabrication".[94]

On June 19, 2007, a group of around 100 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers again denounced the Nanjing Massacre as a fabrication, arguing that there was no evidence to prove the allegations of mass killings by Japanese soldiers. They accused Beijing of using the alleged incident as a "political advertisement".[95] [96]

On February 20, 2012, Takashi Kawamura, mayor of Nagoya, told a visiting delegation from Nanjing that the massacre "probably never happened". Two days later he defended his remarks, saying, "Even since I was a national Diet representative, I have said [repeatedly] there was no [Nanjing] massacre that resulted in murders of several hundred thousands of people."[97][98]

On February 24, 2012, Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara said that he also believes that the Nanjing massacre never happened. He reportedly claims it would have been impossible to kill so many people in such a short period of time.

Many Japanese prime ministers have visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a shrine for dead Japanese soldiers of World War II, including some war criminals of the Nanking Massacre. In the museum adjacent to the shrine, a panel informs visitors that there was no massacre in Nanjing, but that Chinese soldiers in plain clothes were "dealt with severely". In 2006 former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi made a pilgrimage to the shrine despite warnings from China and South Korea. His decision to visit the shrine regardless sparked international outrage. Although Koizumi denied that he was trying to glorify war or historical Japanese militarism, The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused Koizumi of "wrecking the political foundations of China-Japan relations". An official from South Korea said they would summon the Tokyo ambassador to protest.

In Japan, the Nanking Massacre touches upon national identity and notions of "pride, honor and shame." Yoshida argues that "Nanking crystallizes a much larger conflict over what should constitute the ideal perception of the nation: Japan, as a nation, acknowledges its past and apologizes for its wartime wrongdoings; or . . . stands firm against foreign pressures and teaches Japanese youth about the benevolent and courageous martyrs who fought a just war to save Asia from Western aggression."[108] Recognizing the Nanking Massacre as such can be viewed in some circles in Japan as "Japan bashing" (in the case of foreigners) or "self-flagellation" (in the case of Japanese).

The majority of Japanese acknowledge the IJA committed atrocities during the Nanking Massacre. Some denialists and Japanese officials have openly denied the incident, claiming it to be propaganda designed to spark an anti-Japan movement. In many ways, how "atrocious" the massacre was is the touchstone of left/right divide in Japan; i.e., leftists feel this is a defining moment of the IJA; rightists believe Perry's opening of Japan and the atomic bombings are far more significant events.

[semaphore]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were major manufacturing centers for the IJA. By blasting Hiroshima and Nagasaki off the face of the planet, not only are the Americans displaying overwhelming force to their enemy (if we can eliminate two cities this casually, how long do you think you'll be safe in your little bunker in Tokyo?), but they're also wiping out a large portion of their infrastructure, dramatically lessening their ability to continue fighting even if the display of force wasn't enough to force them to surrender.

While a common rationalisation that sounds good on paper, it kind of falls apart under scrutiny. Japanese military production was heavily decentralised and would not have been much affected, but more importantly the complete naval blockade would have halted all production after a few months at most anyway.

Also that argument hinges upon the use of atomic weapons being the deciding factor in the Japanese surrender, but the use of the atomic weaponry was essentially unnecessary at this point. Even the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, believed that it was unnecessary and that Japan was about to surrender.

This view was echoed by much of the American military high command, including:
- Chief of Staff to the President Fleet Admiral William Leahy, who called the decision "barbaric" and "of no material assisstance"
- Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur, who was reportedly "appalled" and saw "no military justification"
- Army Air Forces Commander General Henry Arnold, who said Japan was about to surrender "atomic bomb or no atomic bomb"
- Pacific Fleet Commander Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, who called it "unnecessary"
- Chief of Naval Operations Fleet Admiral Ernest King, who argued that a blockade would have been enough
- Pacific Strategic Air Forces Commander General Carl Spaatz, who said the war end at "about the same time" without atomic bombings
- Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, who refused to endorse the decision with military justification
- 14 AF Commander General Claire Chennault, who said the war would have ended "even if no atomic bombs had been dropped"
- XXI BC Commander Major General Curtis LeMay, who said the bomb "had nothing to do" with the Japanese surrender
- Third Fleet Commander Admiral William Halsey, who calls it a "mistake"

Ultimately, President Truman overrode their professional opinion and proceeded with a political decision. It's kind of silly really that people are defending the atomic bombing now in military terms, when the best and brightest military commanders of the time were up in arms against it. Who are any of us to question Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall or Leahy's opinions on military necessity?

[casuallyhardcore]

Anyone that finds this "what if" interesting should check out "the man in the high castle" by Philip K Dick

[Knuckle]

walloftext

You have a strong national bias, as well as a chip on your shoulder about the USA.

These were different times, the USA was only involved to save it's greatest allies from annihilation. Which is what would have happened eventually if the US never got involved, whether it be from the Germans, the Japanese or the Soviets. People are talking as if Russia was part of the good guys, they were a very poor miserable Communist country that didn't want to cooperate with any nation what so ever.

[Daxmort]

You have a strong national bias, as well as a chip on your shoulder about the USA.

These were different times, the USA was only involved to save it's greatest allies from annihilation. Which is what would have happened eventually if the US never got involved, whether it be from the Germans, the Japanese or the Soviets. People are talking as if Russia was part of the good guys, they were a very poor miserable Communist country that didn't want cooperate with any nation what so ever.

That isn't actually a wall of text, it's quite a well thought out and detailed argument featuring the opinions of well-recognised (at the time) military leaders on the thoughts of dropping a few (potentially unnecessary) atomic bomb(s) on Japan. I find it quite interesting to see that not all military intelligence was united in thinking that it was legitimately reasonable. In fact, based on that, it seems like it was an entirely government-influenced exercise to demonstrate and flaunt power in an already won war.

Not that I have anything informative to add to that, but I am finding this entire discussion fascinating. Please continue.

[Deleted]

Possible? Yes. Much harder? Yes.

[Ichimarunico]

The US was mostly inconsequential in the grand scheme of the European conflict. The Axis literally beat themselves in that war.