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Editor says, what if the Japanese Emperor Hirohito and other officials were prevented from surrendering World War Two? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the May 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1945, on this day the unconditional surrender of Japan was prevented by the actions of the officers of the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard and the Staff Office of the Ministry of War who occupied the Tokyo Imperial Palace and placed the Emperor under house arrest.
The Kyūjū IncidentA meeting of the Supreme Council for the Direction of War had agreed to accept the Potsdam Declaration. The act of unconditionally surrender was imminent; all that was required was the instrument: the writing of an official communiqué to be sent by the Japanese envoy of Switzerland and Sweden.
But after the proceedings, some Army officers for protection of the sovereign decided that a coup d'état was needed instead. They managed to persuade the Eastern District Army and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move forward with the action and in the event, the communiqué was written but never sent.
With the Emperor in protective custody, a rather different set of words were drafted which would form the basis of an alternate speech declaring Japan's intention to fight down to the last man, woman and child. That is, unless a counter-coup could be pulled off to prevent the broadcast from ever happening..
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Kyupo Incident, Japan, World War 2, World War Two, Conscription Crisis. Editor says, in authoring this article we explore an idea originally proposed by Stan Brin and developed with Jeff Provine. In so doing we have repurposes content from Cracked, also we have reviewed articles such as Robert Conroy's 1945 and Umlud's blog article Would Imperial Japan have crumbled?.
~ This is some scary shiznit....
~ I guess the invasion of Japan would have proceeded, or we would have atom-bombed the rest of the country.
~ There was a list of additional A-bomb targets, including Tokyo, although the Japanes capital was considered a last-ditch choice since nuking it might leave no one with the authrity to order a general surrender.
If the invasion went ahead instead, the Soviets likely would have invaded northern Japan as well, leading to a situation in Japan nt unlike that in Korea and upping the risk of a general Asian war, r even a nuclear World war III, in the 1950s.
~ To quote my brother from yesterday, "There would be one million American soldiers dead, and Japan would cease to be a nation."
~ How likely is a counter-coup, if not immediately, when the casualty count begins to climb?
~ In OTL the coup collapsed after Shizuichi Tanaka convinced the rebellious officers to go home. Perhaps in this ATL, the imprisoned Hirohito takes on that role himself.
~ US was veering away from invasion to blockade. Navy and DC were staring at the fast rising casualty estimates. So we probably keep mining Japan's harbors, take Pusan in SK and half of Japan starves to death that winter. Big change is in China. Red Army keeps moving south with Mao moving in behind him. Paradoxically this saves Chiang as it forces a partition with Chiang getting South China in 1946 [draw a line from Canton to Chunking for the core].
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~ Conroy did something like this, IIRC.
~ There's a book called Japan's Longest Day that goes into the coups. The H-War archives have excellent discussions on the USN and JCS veering off the invasion plans. No one ever quite made a no go order but it was trending that way.
~ This outcome would depend on what happens over the next few days. If cooler heads force the release of Hirohito within a few days, then the surrender goes on roughly the same way it happened in OTL.
Assume Hirohito is deposed and someone gains power who will not surrender. The Allies launch Operations Coronet and Olympic and Japan is invaded. The Allies suffer as many as 750,000 casualties and the Japanese suffer estimated 3.5 - 4.5 million military and civilian causalities. It is not hard to see American ramping up production of A-bombs and using them against troops defending cities like Nagoya, Kobe and Tokyo. Two or three years later Japan is destroyed with little industry or infrastructure left. The Russians have seized the opportunity to invade and seize Hokkaido and northern Japan.
I am not sure how the American public would react to the losses. Would they force our government to abandon the conquest of Japan, leaving it to Russia, would there be draft riots? Fighting in Japan could lead to US troops being pulled out of Europe with Stalin seizing an opportunity to invade West Germany and Austria.
Good alt hist scenario.
Chris
~ @Chris - I think you are generous on Japanese civilian casualties. Numbers I have seen suggest a 50%+ mortality rate over winter 45-46 without additional combat. Add the amount of air we could put in and WW2 ROE on attacking 'civilian' targets [we hit anything that moved and anything standing, also any sign of human life] I would say 75-80% civilian death totals by mid 1946 and maybe 60% of the military outside Kyushu. 90% for Kyushu.
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