Did Truman know Hiroshima was a city?

[grumbler]

Togo didn't - the Japanese leadership were incredibly vague in their idea of what they should offer for peace. It was contentious internally - and Sato criticised it quite bluntly. But the "peace feelers" were authorised by the Imperial Household as well as Togo (and the US was aware of it all). There were discussions around the appropriate concessions to the USSR (the North Kurils, North Manchuria, while Japan itself kept or through puppet regimes managed South Manchuria and Korea). These are, of course, less than what Stalin expected from joining the war.

But these discussions were all internal Japanese discussions.  None of them amounted to "peace feelers" because none of them were communicated outside the Japanese inner circle (though the US could, of course, read the cables between Sato and Togo).  A discussion of what Japan had to do before initiating peace feelers isn't the actual initiation of peace feelers.

Were they sincere attempts to negotiate a peace - I'm not sure. I think they were utterly detached from the reality/perspective of the allies (including Stalin). But I don't know how much of that is a failure of the Japanese leadership to fully appreciate their situation (and perhaps be a little bit delusional), if it was just an attempt to buy time or a failure to understand the seriousness of the allies. I think they were vague probably counterproductive and in no way a serious effort to end the war - but factually they did exist and I think the why they were so weak is helpful in understanding/explaining the Japanese leadership at that point. As I say I'm genuinely unsure if it was an attempt to postpone doom, an attempt to buy time or just delusional.

The whole point, though, is that the Japanese had not, in fact, initiated peace feelers and the Allies knew it.  Arguing against the use of the A-bomb because the Jpanese had indicated a desire to surrender is counter-factual.

And because the Americans had actually broken the cipher was probably influential in stiffening I imagine, already very strong American resolve. But again the leadership was very wrong on this - I can't remember who but there was one Japanese minister I think who was noting in late July that "Churchill has fallen, America grows isolated" and this meant if Japan could just hold on they could negotiate a favourable peace. Utterly wrong-headed (and particularly vulnerable to the shock from a Soviet invasion).

The Japanese leadership, from the Emperor on down, was committed to the policy of holding on until they defeated the first American invasion.  That hope was dashed when the US use of nuclear weapons demonstrated that such an invasion would not likely come.  The shock of the Soviet DoW was great, but it created a problem in the more distant future than the US destruction of entire cities at a  time, and even more distant than the starvation and subsequent civil unrest that was being created by the US blockade and Operation Starvation.  The Soviets had only enough amphibious lift (thanks to American aid) for elements of one division at a time.  The Japanese knew that a Soviet invasion of the homeland couldn't come for months.  The Emperor told Togo on the eighth, after Hiroshima but before the Soviet DoW, that Japan now had to surrender. 

I swear someone on here asked a while ago about what the various plotters against Hitler really thought they could do - did they really think they could negotiate a peace other than surrender. I think the last months of Japan are actually the example of that

Lots of wishful thinking in both cases, to be sure.  But that's hardly a surprise, as we see lots of wishful thinking in situations not nearly so disastrous.

But the Japanese leadership at that point hadn't reached the conclusion that they needed to surrender.

They hadn't even reached the point where they thought that they were fundamentally defeated.

So my point is not the "powers that be" but specifically the emperor and the imperial household who were I think almost entirely focused on saving the position of the emperor and imperial household. I think it begins to clarify (and there are discussions on this - including through the Swiss to protect the position of the emperor) that the imperial structure in Japan has a better chance of negotiating with the Americans. I think the risk of either revolt or a surrender involving Stalin (i.e. not on Potsdam which was vague on the emperor and exploited for that) was too great. That became an obsession for Hirohito in early August - preserving the imperial objects etc and his own role.

I don't think that the records we have support the idea that the Emperor was focused on preserving his own position (though he was very concerned to get the Imperial relics away to safety - not to make them safe from the Americans, but to keep them save from the Japanese Army); he had, after all, conceded to Togo that he would accept  unconditional surrender before the Big Six vetoed that and added all the stuff about no occupation or war crimes trials et al.  The compromise was the insistence on a surrender not impinging on the Imperial nature of the Japanese government (an insistence that delayed the surrender by a critical four days).  And, in the end, when the US would not offer that guarantee, it was Hirohito personally who intervened and decided that japan would surrender without the guarantee.

Again I can't remember who but there were ministers who say that actually the bombs and the Soviet invasion were shocks, but the biggest driver to surrender for them was the domestic situation. There were growing reports from every governor that people were turning not just against the government but against the emperor and the imperial household.

The domestic order situation was certainly becoming dire, but I think that this is another area where the military elements of the Big Six had a huge blind spot.

Similarly Japan wasn't an occupied country or going through an invasion - so there's no equivalence with the French resistance or the Italian or Greek or Yugoslav partisans. But there is evidence of resistance within Japan - I don't think there's much available in English that I know of, but for example about 10% of planes and other war materials coming out of Japanese factories had been sabotaged by organised workers which, I think, is important.

That's an interesting claim, especially if it applies to factories in Japan.  Those in Manchuria and Korea had a lot of forced labor and so one would expect numbers like that, but if that was happening in Japan itself then it had to be organized by anti-fascist (i.e. communist) elements.  Can you steer me to your source on this?

[Sheilbh]

But these discussions were all internal Japanese discussions.  None of them amounted to "peace feelers" because none of them were communicated outside the Japanese inner circle (though the US could, of course, read the cables between Sato and Togo).  A discussion of what Japan had to do before initiating peace feelers isn't the actual initiation of peace feelers.

They had informed the Soviet government and offered to send Prince Konoe as an envoy for the negotiations. Molotov was unimpressed on exactly the lines Sato had expected. I'm not sure when they first raised that with the Soviets but Sato was instructed to seek an urgent meeting with Molotov after Hiroshima to clarify if the Soviets would help

The whole point, though, is that the Japanese had not, in fact, initiated peace feelers and the Allies knew it.  Arguing against the use of the A-bomb because the Jpanese had indicated a desire to surrender is counter-factual.

I'm not arguing against the use of the A-bomb or that the Japanese were indicating a desire to surrender.

The Japanese leadership, from the Emperor on down, was committed to the policy of holding on until they defeated the first American invasion.  That hope was dashed when the US use of nuclear weapons demonstrated that such an invasion would not likely come.  The shock of the Soviet DoW was great, but it created a problem in the more distant future than the US destruction of entire cities at a  time, and even more distant than the starvation and subsequent civil unrest that was being created by the US blockade and Operation Starvation.  The Soviets had only enough amphibious lift (thanks to American aid) for elements of one division at a time.  The Japanese knew that a Soviet invasion of the homeland couldn't come for months.  The Emperor told Togo on the eighth, after Hiroshima but before the Soviet DoW, that Japan now had to surrender. 

The Emperor says they must not miss the chance to terminate the war "by bargaining for more favorable conditions now". He added that however much they consulted they could not to an agreement and his wish was to "make arrangements" to end the world as soon as possible. I think that is ambiguous at best as to whether Hirohito was accepting surrender at that point - the language of bargaining and making arrangements suggests not, to me.

I think the key moment is the day after when they have the double shock of a Soviet invasion and a second nuke. I think that destroys any illusions, exposes the risk of Stalin at the negotiating table (and again - there's a decade long intense Soviet-Japanese competition, despite the neutrality agreement) and results in Hirohito's decisive influence for unconditional surrender as opposed to previous ambiguities.

I don't think that the records we have support the idea that the Emperor was focused on preserving his own position (though he was very concerned to get the Imperial relics away to safety - not to make them safe from the Americans, but to keep them save from the Japanese Army); he had, after all, conceded to Togo that he would accept  unconditional surrender before the Big Six vetoed that and added all the stuff about no occupation or war crimes trials et al.  The compromise was the insistence on a surrender not impinging on the Imperial nature of the Japanese government (an insistence that delayed the surrender by a critical four days).  And, in the end, when the US would not offer that guarantee, it was Hirohito personally who intervened and decided that japan would surrender without the guarantee.

Yeah - although again it depends on the interepretation of the US response (a bit like Potsdam there is deliberate ambiguity around the role of the emperor). So Byrnes replied that the emperor and the Japanese government would be subordinate to the Supreme Allied Commander but did not directly respond to the question. It's a clever diplomatic anser that maintains unconditional surrender, but hints that the emperor's position might be saved. I think that response was probably a win for the Japanese section of the State Department - my understanding is the Japanese translators actually softened it further from "shall be subject to" to "shall be circumscribed by". I don't know how decisive a factor that is but it is striking - I also understand it's not clear if that was something some junior flunkies in the Foreign Office were instructed to do by a superior in the peace party or if it was their own initiative.

The domestic order situation was certainly becoming dire, but I think that this is another area where the military elements of the Big Six had a huge blind spot.

Yeah in those 4-5 days there was significant public unrest and disorder. I can't remember who but there was a Japanese figure who said that, in a way, the nukes and Soviet invasion had been a blessing because they were reasons to surrender rather than domestic forces - which it's impossible to see not ending in a civil war. And I think from the perspective of many of the leaders who were all about trying to preserve what they could of Japanese nationhood and the imperial household etc - it may not even be that they were afraid of a communist revolt, because any revolt would fundamentally undermine what in their view were the "foundations" of Japan.

That's an interesting claim, especially if it applies to factories in Japan.  Those in Manchuria and Korea had a lot of forced labor and so one would expect numbers like that, but if that was happening in Japan itself then it had to be organized by anti-fascist (i.e. communist) elements.  Can you steer me to your source on this?

I can't, sorry. I can't remember where it is - I read it in an essay on Japanese popular resistance and it stuck in my mind because it's so big. But there was also talk about the sheer level of absenteeism in industries in Tokyo which was reaching 40-50% on some days - and part of that may just have been a "success" from massive bombing campaigns. But I think it's also indicative of collapsing domestic support and - combined with the sabotage and the unrest before the surrender - of growing popular resistance to basically dying for a regime that is visibly on its last legs.

And I wonder if that is actually the more likely possibility and counter-factual - that instead of a huge US invasion you get a domestic collapse and the start of a civil war (possibly like Italy or Greece). In that context - though I don't think any of the participants were thinking about this, it's just me spitballing - the USSR is a very big risk even if they can't invade. I think some of the unrest would need to spread to junior officers and soldiers, and I don't know if that was happening as well. But at that point given that Stalin is about to start making aggressive moves in the early Cold War, I wonder how quickly any internal Japanese conflict would just be subsumed. I think the alliance could just about hold while they're both fighting the Japanese state.

[Berkut]

The amount of work put in to come up with an alternative history to what actually happened is astounding, and actually a lot more interesting then the details of the actual new mythology, whatever it might be.

It really does speak to the idea that history is a story we tell ourselves, and one that many people are pretty happy to just make it up to suit whatever it is they really, really, really want to believe. The attempt to re-write history to serve a needed narrative, rather then understand it in order to construct a better, more accurate narrative.

[Sheilbh]

The amount of work put in to come up with an alternative history to what actually happened is astounding, and actually a lot more interesting then the details of the actual new mythology, whatever it might be.

It really does speak to the idea that history is a story we tell ourselves, and one that many people are pretty happy to just make it up to suit whatever it is they really, really, really want to believe. The attempt to re-write history to serve a needed narrative, rather then understand it in order to construct a better, more accurate narrative.

I mean my alternative history is hardly a desperately needed narrative (except, for my unfortunate instinct to add a little bit of complication when I can ). I don't have strong fixed opinions on the surrender because I think there are a lot of factors from everything I've read there are contradictions and issues with the record. - which is what you'd expect about a country surrendering. The only thing I would add where I have a strong opinion is more general in that I think we still are probably underestimating the role of Hirohito (less around the surrender and more Japan in the war generally) and that there are gaps and doctored records from that time to protect Hirohito and the role of the emperor. Basically I think Bix is right - but there's probably even more gaps than we realise.

But my main point is we shouldn't rule out things that the records show were being considered at the time in favour of a simple, monocausal explanation - especially if that's been the dominant view for a while. A revisionist argument is almost always worth engaging with because even if it doesn't convince you it should sharpen your perspective.

My instinct is that it was the double shock - it was the Soviet invasion and the nukes together. I think one or the other and - based on what I've read about the Japanese leadership - I think they probably would have found a way to convince themselves that they could re-organise in Manchuria and maybe defend Korea; or that nukes were basically just a new version of firebombing. I think the combination in a really short space of time was psychologically devastating.

I don't know what you think I really, really want to believe

[Berkut]

I don't think it is you, I think you just find it an intellectually interesting exercise.

I still maintain that the entire story of the Japanese surrender really being about the Soviet invasion is 100% driven by the need to believe that the nukes did not matter. And a good chunk of that is driven by a lot of people who spend a lot of time trying to re-write WW2 history to minimize Western participation. And this particular bit of revisionist history is so delicious - the one part of the war the Soviets were not involved in at all, you get to just pretend like none of it actually mattered - turns out the Soviets won THAT war as well!

You are just like someone who finds it interesting to discuss whether the Civil War was really all about tariffs instead of slavery, or maybe we should re-consider whether the Germans REALLY meant to kill 6 million Jews. I mean..."we shouldn't rule out things that the records show...in favor of mono-casual explanations" after all. And most especially if that has been the dominant view for a while! Let's sharpen our perspective on that entire "The South were trying to protect slavery" bit! Surely slavery wasn't the ONLY (or even dominant) reason for the war!

Right?

[Sheilbh]

I don't think it is you, I think you just find it an intellectually interesting exercise.

I find the why in history really interesting. Or I enjoy history that I think gets close to explaining the context in which things happen - though there'll be lots of different ways to balance that out and weigh it up and then obviously giving their take on what the balance was (which I might agree with or not).

I still maintain that the entire story of the Japanese surrender really being about the Soviet invasion is 100% driven by the need to believe that the nukes did not matter. And a good chunk of that is driven by a lot of people who spend a lot of time trying to re-write WW2 history to minimize Western participation. And this particular bit of revisionist history is so delicious - the one part of the war the Soviets were not involved in at all, you get to just pretend like none of it actually mattered - turns out the Soviets won THAT war as well!

Maybe - but if the evidence and the sources they're dredging up from Japanese and Soviet records and interesting and important - does that matter? I don't necessarily have to agree with a historian's perspective or argument to think that they're kind of doing something interesting or bringing some new perspective or evidence. But sometimes it does shift your view.

On WW2 more generally I don't really know or care about military history - it's not something I enjoy reading. So I read about the end of the war and the post-war because I'm interested in the Cold War. I've also read about Hirohito, Chiang and Stalin. But aside from those which I wasn't really reading for WW2 alone, the only WW2 books I've really read are Wages of Destruction about the German economy and a book on the Sino-Japanese war - which was very very high level.

You are just like someone who finds it interesting to discuss whether the Civil War was really all about tariffs instead of slavery, or maybe we should re-consider whether the Germans REALLY meant to kill 6 million Jews. I mean..."we shouldn't rule out things that the records show...in favor of mono-casual explanations" after all. And most especially if that has been the dominant view for a while! Let's sharpen our perspective on that entire "The South were trying to protect slavery" bit!

Not really for a start because I don't think they are really equivalent. The Truman question I just found fascinating - because all it's doing is reading what Truman wrote literally and asking, what if that's what he meant? On the surrender for me it's closer to why did Stalin launch the purge, or ignore the evidence of an impending German attach (he was still, apparently, more focused on Japan at that point). There's loads of records, there's loads of possibilities - Stalin is a complex figure so it's impossible to know how he weighed it up (but arguably easier than when you have so many players - as in Japan).

But it was a revisionist argument, relying on records from the time, that displaced the dominant narrative that the Civil War was about states' rights or whatever else. Similarly if you think about the Irving trial, it was the historians' evidence of all the records and all the evidence in all their complexity - and every bit of new evidence (for example from Soviet archives) reinforced the point - that built such an overwhelming case to Irving's racist cherry-picking. It wasn't by ignoring facts that didn't fit but by weighing them against others and reaching a conclusion that is, I think, unarguable.

[Josquius]

Of course you can.  You could provide a contemporaneous estimate that is markedly lower than the quote unquote post war propaganda estimate.  You could provide a date stamp on the quote unquote propaganda estimate.

It first emerges in a 1947 Harper's article.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538830

And, as I and several others have mentioned several times, in order to come to this conclusion you have to ignore the fact that even after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped the hawkish faction wanted to continue the fight.  And this was of course after the Soviet Union had entered the war.

I don't get your logic here.
They wanted to continue to fight even after the bombs had been dropped.... yet Japan surrendered.
This sounds like an argument against the bombs single handedly winning the war  rather than in defence of it.

Ahh, so you are claiming now that the Communist revolters in Japan were similar to the French Resistance. Excellent, now we are getting somewhere!

So I can point to literally thousands of documents talking about the actions of the French resistance long before D-Day. They did all kinds of shit, in fact. Certainly a lot more AFTER D-Day of course, but one would not be surprised that there was a French Resistance on June 5th, for example. In fact, the Allies were in communication and coordination with them, and there are ample source documents showing just that.

Show me all the source documents of the activities of the Japanese Communist Resistance in Japan. They were probably blowing up bridges, maybe killing (or trying to kill) Japanese officials, or doing whatever it is contemporaneous with French Resistance prior to the actual landings in France. Heck, they were probably even in communication with the Soviets! Radio transcripts, carrier pigeon? Gotta be some good stuff here!


I'll wait.

Holy shit. This is amazing.
You completely ignore the bulk of my reply in order to act smart concentrating on an utterly irrelevant throw away line.
I never said there was the equivalent of the French resistance in Japan. This is a new height of stupid. The only reason they were mentioned was to ridicule your idea that if a group isn't actively fighting at every possible moment then it just doesn't exist, those are the only two possible options.

[Razgovory]

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538830

Why did you link to this?

[OttoVonBismarck]

On WW2 more generally I don't really know or care about military history - it's not something I enjoy reading. So I read about the end of the war and the post-war because I'm interested in the Cold War. I've also read about Hirohito, Chiang and Stalin. But aside from those which I wasn't really reading for WW2 alone, the only WW2 books I've really read are Wages of Destruction about the German economy and a book on the Sino-Japanese war - which was very very high level.

Unfortunately you can't really understand WW2 without understanding the military piece. Like it's easy to just roll your eyes and gloss over it, but as I said--the Soviet Union had no real capacity to invade Japan. Japan isn't part of the Asian land mass, it's a series of islands. The only islands the Soviets took were 1) an Island they already controlled half of, and could stage troops on and 2) a very small island that only required an amphibious invasion of like 6500 troops. The latter literally stressed the Soviet naval transport fleet beyond its capacity. The planned invasion of Hokkaido, many Soviet war planners felt would actually fail, because they just lacked the naval transport to get enough men onto the beaches rapidly enough.

Hokkaido is one of the smallest and least populated of the "core" home islands. Meanwhile Japan knew the U.S. Navy actually had the resources to land millions of men on Japanese shores. The idea that Japan was afraid the USSR was going to depose the Emperor just isn't reality. The USSR had a better chance of launching a satellite into space in 1945 than overrunning the Japanese home islands. The Soviets hit the very minor islands they were capable of hitting, and started attacking Japanese occupied territory on mainland Asia, but the USSR was not a direct threat to Japan. That's just military fact, not something we have to speculate about.

[Josquius]

On WW2 more generally I don't really know or care about military history - it's not something I enjoy reading. So I read about the end of the war and the post-war because I'm interested in the Cold War. I've also read about Hirohito, Chiang and Stalin. But aside from those which I wasn't really reading for WW2 alone, the only WW2 books I've really read are Wages of Destruction about the German economy and a book on the Sino-Japanese war - which was very very high level.

Unfortunately you can't really understand WW2 without understanding the military piece. Like it's easy to just roll your eyes and gloss over it, but as I said--the Soviet Union had no real capacity to invade Japan. Japan isn't part of the Asian land mass, it's a series of islands. The only islands the Soviets took were 1) an Island they already controlled half of, and could stage troops on and 2) a very small island that only required an amphibious invasion of like 6500 troops. The latter literally stressed the Soviet naval transport fleet beyond its capacity. The planned invasion of Hokkaido, many Soviet war planners felt would actually fail, because they just lacked the naval transport to get enough men onto the beaches rapidly enough.

Hokkaido is one of the smallest and least populated of the "core" home islands. Meanwhile Japan knew the U.S. Navy actually had the resources to land millions of men on Japanese shores.

Its lack of density is a point against its defensibility. This wouldn't be a d-dayesque amphibious landing. There's plenty of places to grab a beachhead. Whats worse is most of Japan's defences were facing the south of the country, even in Hokkaido they were facing an American invasion on the east.

The idea that Japan was afraid the USSR was going to depose the Emperor just isn't reality. The USSR had a better chance of launching a satellite into space in 1945 than overrunning the Japanese home islands. The Soviets hit the very minor islands they were capable of hitting, and started attacking Japanese occupied territory on mainland Asia, but the USSR was not a direct threat to Japan. That's just military fact, not something we have to speculate about.

There's two separate things here.
The idea that the USSR could actually conquer Japan is rather far fetched. Hokkaido they could overrun quite easily but going beyond there to Honshu would be difficult- even assuming they wanted to do this, their plans for Hokkaido were to seize the north and then let America do the rest of the dying.
That the Japanese believed the Soviets could take over however is very much grounded in reality. As said its a mistake to think in purely military terms here. The Soviets weren't just another invading army. They fed very neatly into the fears of imminent revolution.

[grumbler]

It first emerges in a 1947 Harper's article.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538830

That article supports Yi's statement and demolishes yours.

And, as I and several others have mentioned several times, in order to come to this conclusion you have to ignore the fact that even after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped the hawkish faction wanted to continue the fight.  And this was of course after the Soviet Union had entered the war.

I don't get your logic here.
They wanted to continue to fight even after the bombs had been dropped.... yet Japan surrendered.
This sounds like an argument against the bombs single handedly winning the war  rather than in defence of it.

You really need to learn some history before you try to use historical evidence, and sharpening your reading comprehension skills would also help you avoid saying dumb things like this.

Here's the timeline of significance:

August 6th: Hiroshima bombed.  Big Six are concerned, because Japan's own nuclear project indicated how powerful the bomb was, but hey console themselves that the US can't have more bombs because it is so hard to separate uranium.

August 8th:  USSR declares war.  Big Six doesn't even meet until late Aug 9th to discuss this.  Togo meets with Hirohito, who tells him that the bomb means Japan needs to seek peace.

August 9-10th:  Big Six meet to discuss Hiroshima and the Soviet DoW.  News comes of Nagasaki, meaning that the US has multiple bombs. Hawk faction still wants to fight on until the Four Conditions can be met, Dove faction wants to accept Potsdam with a guarantee of the Emperor's position.  3-3 tie.  Emperor intervenes personally, says to seek peace.  Hawks agree with Dove proposal, and the message is sent to the US via Swiss embassy.  Truman orders a halt to plans to use a third nuke.

Aug 12th:  US responds with reiteration of Potsdam terms, noting that the Japanese people, not the US government, would decide the Emperor's fate and the role of the position.  Bix Six meet and decide that the US response doesn't meet their condition for surrender, so back to 3-3 tie.

Aug 13-14 The Dove faction works on the Hawk faction but get no traction.  US resumes bombing campaign due to lack of Japanese response.  PM reports to Emperor that the Big Six is deadlocked.  The Emperor again intervenes and declares himself satisfied with the US response, citing again the nuclear attacks.  Japan sends message to US accepting Potsdam terms, and the war is ending.

Aug 15;  Emperor's radio address to the Japanese nation, announcing the surrender, noting that  "the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb."  Mutiny by some troops is quelled when Minister of War commits seppuku.

So what you need to understand but don't is that "the hawkish faction" did want to continue the war, but couldn't in the face of the Emperor's opposition.  Once you understand that there were factions in the Japanese government, and imperial intervention, you won't again say something as dumb as "They wanted to continue to fight even after the bombs had been dropped.... yet Japan surrendered."

Holy shit. This is amazing.
You completely ignore the bulk of my reply in order to act smart concentrating on an utterly irrelevant throw away line.
I never said there was the equivalent of the French resistance in Japan. This is a new height of stupid. The only reason they were mentioned was to ridicule your idea that if a group isn't actively fighting at every possible moment then it just doesn't exist, those are the only two possible options.

  Holy shit, this is amazing.  You get offended when someone calls you on a stupid claim, and then call your own claim "a new height of stupid" and pretend that it wasn't you that brought it up!

You are correct that comparing Japanese and French resistance movements is "a new height of stupid," but I'm willing to bet you pile up an even greater height of stupid in the future.

[Berkut]

Oh yeah, it would definitely be totally easy to overrun Hokkaido. "Quite easily" in fact.

Everyone who knows anything about the Pacific War knows how easy it is to overrun Japanese islands. Piece of cake. All it takes are a few troops and some like rafts to shuttle them on over, because we know how quickly the Japanese just roll right over when they are in "indefensible" positions.

And you can see how much of a threat the Japanese thought this was as well, after all Tyr just told us that "most of Japan's defences were facing the south of the country, even in Hokkaido they were facing an American invasion on the east."

So obviously their overriding strategic fear was that Soviet invasion, which we know would be trivial to pull off, which is why the Japanese aligned all their defenses away from that axis of threat, even though it was their primary strategic concern for the entire war.

[grumbler]

How much experience did the Soviet Navy have in defending against kamikaze attacks?  None of their sixty or so landing craft could survive even a single hit.  Their fifteen warships there had no effective air search radar and only two had air search radar at all. 

It doesn't matter how many defenders there are if no attackers survive the voyage.

There is a reason the Soviet High Command realized that they couldn't invade Hokkaido, and sent the small amphib fleet against the Kuriles instead.

[Sheilbh]

Unfortunately you can't really understand WW2 without understanding the military piece. Like it's easy to just roll your eyes and gloss over it, but as I said--the Soviet Union had no real capacity to invade Japan. Japan isn't part of the Asian land mass, it's a series of islands. The only islands the Soviets took were 1) an Island they already controlled half of, and could stage troops on and 2) a very small island that only required an amphibious invasion of like 6500 troops. The latter literally stressed the Soviet naval transport fleet beyond its capacity. The planned invasion of Hokkaido, many Soviet war planners felt would actually fail, because they just lacked the naval transport to get enough men onto the beaches rapidly enough.

Hokkaido is one of the smallest and least populated of the "core" home islands. Meanwhile Japan knew the U.S. Navy actually had the resources to land millions of men on Japanese shores. The idea that Japan was afraid the USSR was going to depose the Emperor just isn't reality. The USSR had a better chance of launching a satellite into space in 1945 than overrunning the Japanese home islands. The Soviets hit the very minor islands they were capable of hitting, and started attacking Japanese occupied territory on mainland Asia, but the USSR was not a direct threat to Japan. That's just military fact, not something we have to speculate about.

Sorry I don't think I've been clear. I don't think the Japanese were afraid of the Soviets over-running the home islands. However as I've said before I don't think the Japanese assessment/understanding of their situation matches a rational assessment from what we know now - and if there is any point in history where sensible people might justifiably over-estimate Soviet strength it's August 1945. Plus they did seem to have concerns of fighting on that many fronts.

The Japanese hope for a negotiated peace would involve concessions with the Soviets. Even these were delusional - they thought that the Soviets would get North Manchuria, the Japanese would get South Manchuria and Korea would be a buffer state. That's with the Soviets as a neutral mediator. Having invaded Manchuria which the Japanese were not prepared for or in a position to prepare a response, that shifted - I think it was Suzuki who said the Soviets would "destroy the very foundation of Japan" by demanding Manchuria, Korea, the Kurils and Hokkaido. While that is kind of delusional - Manchuria and Korea were lost whatever happened - I think that is a reasonable assessment of Soviet demands (at least on the mainland) because I can't think of many examples of the Soviets leaving territory once the Red Army had arrived - arguably except Manchuria which they handed over to Mao (after settling their border) and Korea on the 38th parallel.

The risk to the emperor isn't from the Soviets over-running the home islands but from the fact that once the Soviets are properly in the war Japan will be negotiating with the US and the USSR for the terms of surrender and how the occupation was going to work. It was already in evidence in Europe where, I think the Polish People's Republic had been declared and the occupied zones for Germany had been set out. It isn't the Polish scenario that's the risk for them, but the German and if the USSR has, say, taken over Manchuria and Korea and possibly more it is unlikely that the Soviets wouldn't be at the table. The options I think the Japanese faced weren't be occupied by the Soviets and Americans, or be occupied by the Americans alone - but, rather, surrender unconditionally now and only have to deal with the Americans, or surrender unconditionally later and have the Soviets dictating terms too (even if they aren't occupying the Home Islands).

[Berkut]

I don't think it is you, I think you just find it an intellectually interesting exercise.

I find the why in history really interesting. Or I enjoy history that I think gets close to explaining the context in which things happen - though there'll be lots of different ways to balance that out and weigh it up and then obviously giving their take on what the balance was (which I might agree with or not).

I still maintain that the entire story of the Japanese surrender really being about the Soviet invasion is 100% driven by the need to believe that the nukes did not matter. And a good chunk of that is driven by a lot of people who spend a lot of time trying to re-write WW2 history to minimize Western participation. And this particular bit of revisionist history is so delicious - the one part of the war the Soviets were not involved in at all, you get to just pretend like none of it actually mattered - turns out the Soviets won THAT war as well!

Maybe - but if the evidence and the sources they're dredging up from Japanese and Soviet records and interesting and important - does that matter? I don't necessarily have to agree with a historian's perspective or argument to think that they're kind of doing something interesting or bringing some new perspective or evidence. But sometimes it does shift your view.

Of course it matters.

There is always a huge amount of noise in history. The amount of data is immense. There are, by definition, millions of pieces of source material. A lot of it is noise, and trying to figure out what the signal is can, at times, be difficult. Sometimes it isn't that difficult though, because what happened is right there in front of you. You can ask the question "Why did the South start the Civil War?" and the answer is blindingly obvious. The signal drowns out the noise, because they were nice enough to simply tell us, over and over and over again, why they started the war. But there is still a bunch of noise out there. And if you have an agenda, and that agenda is to try to come up with a story to tell that ignores the signal in favor of the noise, then you just go out and ignore the signal, and pick out some juicy noise and say "SEE! I FOUND IT! IT TURNS OUT THE CIVIL WAR WAS ALL ABOUT TARIFFS! I found this "evidence and sources I dredged up from Japanese and Soviet Confederate records that are interesting and important!". Then you follow that on with some Jim Crow laws and maybe a few thousand lynchings to show that your Lost Cause myth really has some good teeth.

That is *exactly* what is happening here. Yes, the motives of the people involved most definitely matter. You can "prove" nearly anything if you are motivated and willing to just pick and choose the data you give credence to. You can "prove" that vaccines are a bad idea - after all, did you know that the vaccine response database has a shitty interface, so it could be the case that the adverse reactions are under-estimated by an order of magnitude! (Yes, that is a real thing - one of the latest vaccine hesitancy excuses is the claim that the website to track adverse reactions is poorly designed. So someone said "It could be that adverse reactions are under reported by an order of magnitude!" So someone noted that there were about 12,000 adverse reactions reported , which MUST be off by an order of magnitude, so apparently we now know that certainly 120,000 people have been killed by the vaccine, and this is being covered up. Look, it's just data! Isn't this interesting and important, regardless of the motives of who is bringing you that data???? ISN'T IT!!!!)

Evidence and records are interesting when they are brought forward to be studied in honest context with OTHER records and evidence. Not when they are brought forward in specific isolation of contrasting information in order to feed an agenda. Indeed, when THAT happens, it is downright dangerous, and is generally used to promote some kind of propaganda or dishonest narrative.

This is an example of the exact same kind of thinking and research that brought us the Lost Cause myth. And that *worked* and contributed to a couple generations of continuing systemic racism. It is the same kind of thinking that brings us Holocaust denial. The same kind of thinking that brings us "well, surely we want our elections to be secure....right? Shouldn't we at least look at those ballots in Georgia while we ignore the fact that every actual legal proceeding was thrown out? You won't look at them???? OMG lets meet on January 6th and have a chat with our government!"