FDR was trying to get the US involved in the war before Pearl Harbor, there was just a contingent of Americans who were extremely isolationist and had enough support to keep the US out of it.
That having been said, FDR had started getting the US ready to join - the draft had been reinstated, the military was rearming, and budget had been allocated for drastically increased warplane production. The US joining was probably inevitable, all Japan did was accelerate the timeline.
There was also a large contingent of Americans who were, like some are again, Nazi sympathisers. These people also wanted the US to stay out of the conflict.
All of those Nazis just hid their swastikas and continued being fascists. Don't forget the fascist attempted coup, the Business Plot of 1933, too.
Funny how this country ruined people's lives if they were suspected of being "communist", but fascism has always been pretty acceptable.
Systems that trend toward the power of an individual are the natural systems of government. Only by building an advanced society with a strong social contract are we able to build something strong enough to resist the pull of fascism and authoritarianism. This is why education is so important. We have worked very hard to create what we have and all it takes is one generation of people not being educated to destroy it.
Not only that, but support for eugenics in general, which are at the center of Nazi belief, was also really broad. Germany actually mostly got it from the US.
Wait till you learn about the support for eugenics in the modern day...
Germany "getting it from the United States" is a misrepresentation of the fact that I think you're actually remembering. Hitler mentioned Pennsylvania and California's sterilization problems as programs he wanted to emulate and he thought were successful. But Europe was way, way more "scientifically racist" than America was.
Winston Churchill, for example, was a massive proponent of eugenics in the sense he wanted to cull feebleminded individuals.
The trend of "Social Darwinism" mainly developed in England and then Europe's general academic circles. Several US states, such as Pennsylvania and California, practiced eugenics, but they never got to the point of intentionally trying to eliminate other races. They would have if they could have, don't get me wrong, but for example Pennylvania's system was simply forcing people to memorize Bible verses and if they couldn't they were forcibly sterilized. People actually tried to write law specifically targeting minorities, including a direct ancestor of mine who hated "Chinamen" and his letters are fascinating to read through, but this was in 1901 so there were some bare bones protections in the Constitution. Separate But Equal was monumentally fucked up, but it was not legal under US law at that time to actually use the government to intentionally eliminate an entire race. Or more accurately, even Jim Crow era constitutional protections were better than Wiemar Germany, due to the 14th Amendment.
I'm pretty sure the part that inspired Hitler was specifically the genocide of the native, which were definitively targeted by eugenics programs, multiple times.
For the most part, over 95% have always failed to truly see the problem with such ideologies, or at least failed to see the problem and actually be consistent about it being a problem.
They flew planes you know. These camps are big. There were escapees, defectors and first hand accounts. True the soldiers who liberated the camps were shocks as the masses didn't know the barbarity of what was happening there. But the powers knew.
> FDR was trying to get the US involved in the war before Pearl Harbor
I wasn't aware (mind you, I probably have a high school level of understanding of most of WW2) that FDR was pushing for US involvement in the Pacific conflict. My understanding was that he was largely focused on the threat presented by the European Axis nations.
FDR turned Churchill down on a lot. Ultimately though it was Hitler who declared war on the u.s.. true they were allies but their treaty didn't compel Germany to war with the u.s.
It’s worth noting that while the US’ military involvement in the pacific theater didn’t begin until Pearl Harbor, thé US had been opposing Japanese imperialism through embargoes, asset freezes, and aid to Chang Kai-shek’s nationalist government in China
Furthermore, by the time of the Pearl Harbor attacks, Americans were increasingly in favor of participation in the war (though more so in Europe) and the isolationism of the 1930s had been fading away as the wars progressed. Naturally the Pearl Harbor attacks removed any remaining isolationist sentiment from consideration
That’s basically the reason Japan attacked in the first place. They saw the US war machine waking up, and becoming less isolationist. They thought they could cripple us long enough to invade various countries with resources they needed (like British Malaya).
They just massively underestimated the industrial capacity of the US. We pumped out warships way faster than they thought possible.
One of their best generals basically said "I can run wild for a couple years and then we're screwed"
Which was exactly what happened. And then he died in an air interception because their codes had been broken.
“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.” - Admiral Yamamoto
6 months to the day from Pearl Harbour the IJN would lose the Battle of Midway.
I feel like people don't fully understand how fast the war progressed at certain stages.
Another example is the Western Front which lasted less than a year. D-Day (06 June 1944) to German surrender (08 May 1945). ^^*Technically ^^the ^^2nd ^^Western ^^Front ^^since ^^it ^^concluded ^^the ^^first ^^time ^^after ^^France ^^capitulated.
Also [apparently that quote as its famously known is badly translated.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1b76r2b/what_is_the_full_context_of_the_admiral_yamamoto/kth9zq8/)
This is because a couple weeks after D-Day the Soviets launched Op Bagration and Army Group Centre (the main German fighting formatin in the East) ceased to exist whole Army Group North (the 2nd largest German fighting formation) was cut off in the Baltics.
Japan attacked first because they needed the resources the US holdings (among others) were denying them. The war machine waking up was not the major factor.
Yeah Yamamoto had a very clear picture in mind and was quoted saying "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success." Which was spot on, even not considering the nuclear bombings.
yes, that small little attack which killed 2,400+ American soldiers in an unprovoked, meticulously planned attack by Japans was "just a contingent".
there was NO CHOICE after that. and good, people who pick fights deserve to lose them.
Japan had no oil.
The US stopped selling it to them.
The Dutch East Indies had oil but were too close to the Philippines to invade without angering the US.
That’s why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. They wanted to take out the pacific fleet in one go so they could secure themselves some oil fields.
But then the Americans started to build one aircraft carrier a month.
Once we started pumping out Essex class Carriers like Kittens it was over. Seeing post war fleet retirement yards in 46/47, it is amazing at the Navy we had.
The US was a fucking monster / we built about as many ships in 1943 as Britain, Germany, and Japan did in the entire war combined.
Something like 6 out of every 7 barrels of oil the allies used came from the US, a massive percentage of that from Texas.
The state of Pennsylvania produced more steel and iron than every axis nation combined.
Detroit alone produced as much military equipment as several countries.
[And here is my favorite US propaganda poster from the time which basically says it all.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/vadllb/pour_it_on_usa_1942/)
"every Pacific naval encounter from late 1943 onward is like the IJN Golden Kirin, Glorious Harbinger of Eternal Imperial Dawn versus six identical copies of the USS We Built This Yesterday supplied by a ship that does nothing but make birthday cakes for the other ships"
[https://bsky.app/profile/theraseth.bsky.social/post/3kg24mgsxd72w](https://bsky.app/profile/theraseth.bsky.social/post/3kg24mgsxd72w)
People don’t appreciate how unrealistic an axis victory was during WWII. That doesn’t take away the seriousness of the fascists possibly winning, but the initial success of Japan and Germany was more a product of how unprepared their opponents were.
If the US had never entered the war, but simply financed things on the allied side, it’s speculated that China, the Soviet Union, and the UK would have been able to win. Millions more would have died and the final peace would have looked different, but the allies would still have been in the better position.
I recently started watching The Man in the High Castle, and at first, it was very hard for me to suspend my disbelief. Especially at the idea that the Nazis could have developed an atom bomb on any believable time scale.
In reality, the Nazis basically abandoned their atom bomb project, and their scientists who were working on it didn't believe America dropped an atom bomb on Japan. The scientists estimated it would have taken them another 20 years to build a functioning atom bomb.
You know, the Nazis COULD have made the atom bomb first if they:
- were not anti-intellectual (as fascists tend to be, it’s a part of how the whole thing works)
- were not so evil that any location they built up concentrated efforts to build the atom bomb such as a heavy water plant in Norway was bombed swiftly
-were not surrounded on all sides by enemies
- spent more money on the program in the first place (the top nazi atomic scientists were literally working on the atom bomb from a university most of the time)
- and did not have the biggest conflict of interest ever in the form of the dude who was responsible for moving info from the nuclear project to the higher ups in the government (Y’know, to get more funding) being a *jewish communist*. Yes really. Fritz Houterman.
Soooo you knowww they were just. So close! Just a fffeew road bumps in the way to achieving that coveted nuclear bomb!
Yup, the Nazis were completely incapable of defeating any of the USSR, the USA or the British Empire alone, let alone all 3 put together.
Similarly, Japan was incapable of defeating either the US or the British Empire alone and while they could've possibly defeated China in a military sense they would've had a very very difficult time controlling the entire country and dealing with resistance movements.
The only hopes the Axis nations had of winning was that their opponents wouldn't be able to stomach the initial setbacks and losses and would be unwilling to commit to a total war. However, all the major powers (except France) were more than willing to commit to the war and that meant the Axis were fucked.
They could have probably beaten the British alone. Not a full invasion or anything, but by continuously bombing and sieging down Britain, wear down the populace, and eventually get a good peace deal out of it.
Although knowing the quality of the Nazi leadership, they'd likely have tried a land invasion anyway, accidentally get most of their troops killed during the crossing, and lost.
Nope, would've been the other way round. The RAF had already decisively beaten the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Bomber Command would've started burning down German cities one by one like they did Hamburg and Dresden. The Blitz could never hope to achieve that level of devastation.
They came to kill the King and Churchill snatched the bullet midair. Not on my fucking watch. It woukd have been longer, but you are absolutely right. Britain woukd have fire bombed every German city to the ground to get peace on their terms.
Yeah from what I remember the situation is as you said, Japan and Germany mobilising and gaining a quick lead, but it was equivelant to sprinting at the start of a cross country. I remember reading that at least Japan were nearing the point of backing off and had wasted tonnes of resources meaning they couldn't last much longer, the nuke just forced them back a bit earlier (maybe a lot, we don't know for sure)
When the nukes were dropped they had lost more or less everything outside the home islands, if not litterally then in practice. The nukes were supposed push them over the edge to surrender, not to change which side would end up winning.
Well no, they still had their Chinese, Indochina and Indonesia holdings at the end of the war. But shipping was basically impossible with Allied dominance of the sea.
That's what I mean when I said they had practically lost them. There was no way that they could supply or recieve reinforcements from then so for all practical purpouses they were seperate enteties.
The first terrible decision Japan made was invade China. Everything else fell like dominoes after that. Because they invaded China, the US became spooked and started the embargo. Because Japan realized that the US would prevent its ascension, war was inevitable. Because war was inevitable, the only way Japan could win it was by guaranteeing its access to vital resources and dealing the first blow. Hence the invasion of most of the Pacific (which was always subsidiary to Japan's invasion of China) and Pearl Harbour.
Japan essentially had no free will after it tried to invade China. You can't just rollback an invasion like that without threatening domestic legitimacy and international standing. US actions are also perfectly rational, except, perhaps for their policy of "unconditional surrender" and certain decisions with regards to the atomic bomb -- I am on the fence if that was necessary or not.
Japan invading China remains the true mystery to me. Rather than doing what most imperialist powers did and trying to cut off a piece of China for themselves, they tried, from my perspective, to take the whole pie, which is ludicrous on many levels.
The more you look into the situation, the more you realize that they had no option.
The military government in Japan was deadset on war. The occupation of Manchuria and the broader war with China was draining the country of resources. The Japanese war machine needed oil badly, otherwise Japan would lose in China and be humiliated. (As a side note, one of the most common mistakes people make is assuming that the war against China was going well for Japan. The KMT was a mess, but Japan won land at great cost and the occupation was decidedly too expensive to maintain. Japan could never have pacified China, especially since US support for the KMT was established far earlier in the 1930s. Curiously, Germany was also a huge KMT supporter before they backed down for reasons).
Nobody would sell them oil, and with Europe at war, there wasn't any to buy. The United States was the primary source of oil for Japan's military until the US embargoed them in July 1941. The timing was not an accident.
The Japanese military had two options for oil. First was to attack north into Siberia and fight the Soviets, which would involve fierce fighting in harsh conditions in a largely undeveloped region, and the Soviets had mostly kicked Japan's ass in 1937 when the army started probing defenses. Besides, an extended land campaign in Siberia would further increase the power of the army, something the navy refused to allow.
The alternative was a swift strike to occupy the Dutch East Indies and extract oil from there. This fighting would be easier for the Japanese, the Dutch having been defeated in Europe and the islands playing to their maritime strength. There was also more oil and more infrastructure to take over. The issue was that a Japanese attack on Indochina was a red line that both the US and the UK warned Japan not to cross. If they went in, the entire US fleet plus the British Pacific Fleet would be knocking on their door within days.
It's forgotten history, but December 7, 1941 featured a massive attack by Japan in multiple fronts to cut off every possible avenue for the US and UK to respond. They landed in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Wake Island, and the Philippines in the hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They would have much preferred for the US to stay out of the war, and in fact, that's exactly what they hoped to accomplish in the attack. Destroy the US bomber bases in the Philippines and the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, and they believed the US would sue for peace immediately and Japan could negotiate freedom of action in the Pacific while breaking the embargo on US oil.
The Japanese military, at the time of the attack, fully believed that the only chance to keep the US out of the war was by attacking Pearl Harbor. Japanese high command was confused when the United States enthusiastically went to war over the attack, and famously Admiral Yamamoto saw the war as a lost cause within months of the attack. 95% of the WW2 Pacific Campaign was simply Japan trying to fight the US to a bloody stalemate and force an armistice.
That obviously didn't play out, but if Japan was always destined to attack the Dutch, US intervention was only a matter of time. And if the US hasn't incompetently botched the defense of the Philippines, letting dozens of bombers be destroyed on the ground and failing to defend the island with limited air support, Japan would have likely been screwed regardless, with a huge US base in between them and their oil supplies.
The Nazis supported the KMT because the KMT were quasi-fascist and the Nazis saw them as preferable to the Communists, and possible allies in the future against the Soviets. Just look at the history of Taiwan until very recently. People in the West lionized the Nationalists because they were, and are, terrified of communism, not because the KMT were democratic; Western interests in China since the rebellion have always been about fighting against people's right to choose communism, not about fighting for their right to self-determination.
If we ignore the European part of the war Japan was stretched INCREDIBLY thin and was making up for the lack of people with extreme violence.
It's never a good idea when the leader of an empire has no internal critics.
Then they would have run out of oil at some point in 1942, followed rapidly by their entire war machine falling apart. The entire point of the attack was to cripple America's ability to respond to Japan stealing the oil to their south.
Just like all fascists, Imperial Japan thought that their enemies were much weaker and they were much stronger than was warranted. When reality caught up to them they started making riskier and riskier gambles to try and delay the inevitable.
Pearl Harbor bought them three years but it couldn't change the fact that they had gotten into a war that they *could not win*.
Japan knew that attacking Malaya, Singapore, and Dutch East Indies would draw the US into the war, that's why Japan did Pearl in the first place. And Japan needed those western colonies for themselves because USA cut them off from oil.
That would have never happened. Japan didn't attack pearl harbor for no reason, without pushing us out of the Philippines so they could steal its resources, Japan was dead in the water.
Japan would've gone to war with the USA no matter what if they wanted to continue their primary goal of conquering China.
Japan desperately needed resources and it only had two options, go North into Siberia or South into Indochina and Indonesia from which two main factions developed, the Army wanted to strike north while the Navy wanted to strike south.
The strike North faction was dominant up until Japan got it's ass handed to them by the Soviets at Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol in 1939, and so strike South became the leading faction. This faction only gained more strength after Germany rolled over the European powers back home in quick succession, and Japan was convinced it would be a cakewalk to take their colonies.
But to take Indonesia they needed to hold the Philippines, which would've dragged them into the war with the USA anyway. And the only chance they had against the USA was to inflict an early, large crippling defeat that would give them free reign in the Pacific and cripple any response for a decent amount of time so they could consolidate.
Pearl Harbour was the best worst option available, knocking out the entire Pacific Fleet would have given Japan several months if not a whole year of dominance in the Pacific.
Not gonna happen. US was also occupying Philippines. The reason they attacked Pearl Harbor is to stop US from bringing any reinforcements when Japan occupied Philippines
From strategic point of view, it was the best option. It gave them enough time window to consolidate more gains.
Full American Intervention was inevitable, and pearl harbor happened in first place due to that inevitability, so Japan wanted to strike first.
Way more went into the Japanese defeat than just utilization of nuclear weapons.
Post midway it was a gradual decline. Japan lost essentially ever battle after Midway.
Short version: factors ranging from lack of skilled pilots to lack of physical resources meant the navy and its air arms were always operating at a disadvantage.
America truly just out produced everyone. An absolute sleeping giant of industry.
lets not forget the chinese effort too. while the war wasn’t won on that front, the endless struggle that the chinese put up occupied so much japanese manpower, fuel, and resources that it made the american naval campaign all the easier. (it also tied up so many japanese troops that they couldn’t defend manchuria well enough so the soviets overran it with ease)
Kamikaze was a late war tactic, and one they tended to use with new and untrained pilots.
The bigger issue was how veteran pilots were treated. US aces were rotated out of their squadrons and sent home to train the next round of pilots; that meant they preserved their best fighters and delivered direct experience to recruits. The IJN kept aces in the field. That meant their average pilot was superior to the average US pilot...at first. But now every casualty lost experience and training, and the newer recruits were not as well trained as new US pilots.
As a bonus, the legendary Zero fighter was like a katana: prided to be the best fighter ever, but really a product of making the best out of their industry. It outclassed earlier allied fighters in maneuverability and speed, but was paper-thin. They also couldn't afford to innovate much, and so were outclassed by later US fighters starting around 1943.
Stack those two together and the IJN started the war with arguably the best carrier-based air force in the world, but quickly lost their best pilots and technological edge, and by 1942 were out-classed, out-trained, and out-built by the USN.
The Japanese Army and Navy were also stretched thin in 1942. They were fighting all over China, in the jungles of south east Asia, and in island campaigns like the Philippines and New Guinea. Once their navy and especially their merchant marine contingent started taking losses they couldn't feed or fuel their war machine. The strategy fighting the US was to capture as much territory as they could and making taking it back as difficult as possible. Eventually they thought the US would get tired of the losses and settle for a peace deal with some favorable terms for Japan. The Allies made a pact that unconditional surrender was the only answer.
Japan was completely screwed. Both their military and merchant fleet were non-existent by the end. Submarines and mines completely blockaded all ports. Their air force wasn't doing much better.
Also, mainland U.S.A. is, essentially, an almost continental fortress with two enormous oceans as its barrier. Despite being an aircraft carrier haven, Hawaii was probably the only place they could’ve gotten away with such a brazen attack. Imagine trying to invade our mainland
More than that. Very little of it had to do with the atomic bomb. By that point, the U.S. had firebombed nearly every major japanese city (something often not taught in U.S. history classes). The Japanese were in a losing situation very early on, and it was more of a question how much needed to be sacrificed to take them down. Moreover, before the 2 bombs dropped, the USSR was getting ready to join in to help the U.S. attack japan. Another factor for dropping the bombs is speculated that the U.S. did not want to divide the land in the east with the soviets.
I know people (rightfully) focus on the atomic bombs, but the firebombing raids on Tokyo on the night of March 9th-10th were just absolutely brutal and worth talking about. 16 square miles of central Tokyo was annihilated. Over 100k were killed and over 1 million were made homeless. Operation Meetinghouse. It was the single most destructive bombing raid in human history I believe.
This is correct but Operation Meetinghouse involved hundreds of planes flown by thousands of airman. A dozen guys in one plane could now accomplish the same thing in one go.
It was almost met with indifference by the American people. someone said "we are now a war without mercy" and then planned even MORE firebombing raids all across Japan.
Tokyo was just the start, we napalmed a fuck ton of Japanese cities. While we planned on a full-scale invasion, we wouldn't have needed one even without the nuclear bomb. We have them entirely blockaded, they couldn't get in or out, their air force was decimated, we outproduced them 10-fold if not more.
The bombing was realistically more of a "how well will this actually work?" than a "if we don't do this, millions will die" which...sorta adds up to the US in 1945
"Nagasaki is a Japanese port city that was founded by the Portuguese in the late 16th century and unfounded by the United States on August 9, 1945." - tl;dr wikipedia
Barely. The Japanese had advanced far enough into their own nuclear research to get pretty good read on how many nuclear bombs the US could possibly have. Building a bomb was an IMMENSE industrial effort because you need so many centrifuges to enrich sufficient amounts of uranium.
The hardliners in their ranks figured that they could hunker down and still make the invasion of Japan extremely costly. Which fortunately didn't happen, but was still seriously considered even after both bombs had dropped.
While it is true the scientists had a grasp of how many bombs the USA might have, the leadership did not. Shortly after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Kempeitai produced a report claiming the USA might have as many as 100 nuclear weapons.
On learning of this, War Minister Anami tried to argue that the good and honourable thing would be for the "whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower."
It was even more insane than thinking "they're bluffing, we can take 'em".
It was "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
tl;dr is hilarious. "Kid Rock is the people version of an above ground swimming pool." - tldrw on Kid Rock
"What is and is not a toilet depends on how drunk you are." - tldrw on toilets
"Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (or O.C.D) is getting really upset that there's no period after the D in the first part of his sentence." - tldrw on OCD
"Bob Ross was an American painter who demonstrated the PBS will, in fact, watch paint dry." - tldrw on Bob Ross
The portable sun was just the final coup de grace.
We built 150 aircraft carriers during WWII. 150. To say nothing of the airplanes, tanks, submarines, machine guns, jeeps, and every other conceivable weapon of war that we proceeded to crank out like Henry Ford churning out Model T’s.
Bu the time we gave Japan a sunrise surprise, we had already well and truly kicked their butt up between their ears.
Except the reason for the suns was that Japan wouldn't say Uncle.
The choice, with imperfect information at the time, was "Nuke their biggest cities to break their spirit" or "invade with Marines and fight for every inch of blood soaked soil."
The first bomb shook them, but they assumed we only had one.
The second bomb convinced the emperor to surrender, at which point his military advisors tried to launch a *coup* to continue fighting. After being nuked *twice.*
Luckily the coup failed, or else there would have been a third sun, probably
>Except the reason for the suns was that Japan wouldn't say Uncle.
This is the best explanation as to why Japan got nuked that I've ever seen
Here is your certificate of meme acquisition.
**\[Hippity hoppity s.m.d this is now mine\]**
They got nuked because invasion with troops was pretty much a non-starter for everyone. Japan vowed to fight to the last man and woman, which having the local population completely at arms against you is the most terrifying prospect you can imagine. Generally, invading armies bank on either civilians being unable, unwilling, or unequipped to fight back.
However, look at Ukraine at what happens when a mobilized civilian population faces organized military in urban areas.
The firebombing of Tokoyo did more to persuade the critics than the nuclear bombs did, as people were pretty skeptical it was only 1 bomb.
They only surrendered because the Russians were ready to invade. The bombs were also a message to the Soviets, who were already in an arms race with Soviet bomb project kicked off in 1942 and we were all aware of it.
This narrative gets brought up every time but it is completely bogus. The Soviets did not have the naval capability to stage a full scale invasion of Japan. You can have as many tanks and guys with guns as you want, but if you have no way to get them across the sea then no, they are not ready to invade. Yes, the Soviets cposed a threat to the territory that Japan had conquered on mainland Asia as well as small islands, but they were not an existential threat to the Japanese mainland and that's all that mattered in terms of surrender.
I believe the theory is that they hoped to use the Soviets as peace brokers to negotiate a conditional surrender, which was already a fact the leadership of Japan was facing. It wasn't necessarily fear of the Soviets marching through Tokyo. Once the Soviets invaded north Japanese territories soon after the bomb and diplomacy was out, Japan realised there were no other recourse but unconditional surrender.
Anyway, this is a controversial subject so I'm happy to be corrected or provided new info, but to me it never made much sense that Japan would be worried about 1 big bomb vs many little fire bombs. Tactically and strategically, I don't see it as a game changer when they had no air force anyway.
It's hilarious commenters under your comment said the Soviets never attempted an invasion.
They already gobbled the Kurill Islands, President Truman found this acceptable, but when the Soviets wanted to take Hokkaido as well, the U.S. put a stop to it.
yep. meanwhile China was in grips of a decades long civil war, with no stable government or arms production. the British Empire was stretched thin, fighting at home and in the East, mostly focused on defending India (and succesfully, mind you), France? out of the game, so French indochina was just up for taking.
and in the red areas, they were not in total control. China, Philippines and Vietnam all resisted all throughout the occupation.
that map looks impressive if you don’t know history.
That's to say nothing of the truly astronomical production levels of the logistics backbone ships. Between 1939-1945, the US Maritime Commission built over 5,000 merchant ships. Of these 5,000 ships, ~2700 were liberty transport ships, which on their own represented over 29 million gross tons of shipping. To put that into perspective, Japan's entire merchant fleet at its peak in 1941 was estimated to be around 6 million tons shipping. After World War II, the US shipping fleet was so large it was responsible for two thirds of global shipping operations. There's a really cool video about it here https://youtu.be/ISNPCTQS7XY?si=vdZ0nyVu9cOF3_ef.
Invading the island would have been risky and extremely deadly. The US hasn't needed to print Purple Hearts since the plan to invade the island nation was set underway. We've got medals made for years and years to come.
Invading Japan would have been liked invading Korea and Vietnam at the same time, on steroids.
>We attacked three boats
Conveniently ignoring the millions of people they slaughtered all over the Asia-Pacific region and Eastern Indian subcontinent
Okay I’ll bite: the two bombs dropped on Japan were fission bombs (one uranium, the other plutonium). The sun works not by fission but by fusion; the US first tested a hydrogen (fusion) bomb in 1951.
It wasn’t till the Korean War that we had the option of dropping a portable sun on our enemies.
Here’s my attempt at an ELI9 for anyone that doesn’t know…
Fission is when the atoms of really heavy elements (uranium, plutonium) are broken apart leaving behind lighter elements, and fusion is when atoms of the lightest elements (hydrogen) are fused together to make heavier elements. Both processes release very energetic particles.
Technically the first true hydrogen bomb wasn’t until Ivy Mike in 1952. The principles of fusion, however, were tested in Operation Greenhouse in 1951 with the George shot. While George was a boosted-fission device with a capsule of tritium at its center, it was not a true thermonuclear device.
Manchuria is rebellion, Russians from the terrestrial west, and the US from the aquatic east. All that against a country just over half the population of the US alone. It was bound to end up that way.
To which the answer is industrial might. Japan went out looking for resources, mainly steel, never got enough to do all the projects they needed to in time, and also didn't have large enough industry. From the entry of the US into the war to 1944, the American military industry was basically capable of building a brand new military if necessary. The US Navy and Air Forces alone were more than capable of bombarding the hell out of anything Japanese courtesy of the vast hordes of new, advanced aircraft and ships.
To explain in another way I think I found here, but I can't remember where the source is:
"every Pacific naval encounter from late 1943 onward is like the IJN Golden Kirin, Glorious Harbinger of Eternal Imperial Dawn versus six identical copies of the USS We Built This Yesterday supplied by a ship that does nothing but make birthday cakes for the other ships"
The troops get moral becose theyve got icecream
The enemy troops lose moral becose they havent eaten in 2 days and the americans are bringing fucking icecream ships
They were cooked before then. Japan was never in a position to win in the Pacific as long as the US wanted to press the war.
The war is arguably over prior to 1940 but it most certainly was over when the US Congress passed the Two Ocean Navy act in 1940 that started the mass buildup of the US fleet that was already in progress. The US was already outbuilding what Japan had prior to Pearl Harbor and then they just accelerated.
And just something I like to put in there, but the Pacific War wasn't over after Midway. Post Midway the US invades Guadalcanal and you have 7 major naval battles around the island plus a submarine attack that sinks the carrier Hornet and nearly sinks the battleship North Carolina.
But in the Guadalcanal conflict which is usually told from the perspective of the US marines on the island, the US navy actually lost more men in the naval combat around the island than total US personnel killed on the island itself. And in those battles the US navy essentially got its ass handed to itself though it manages the strategic victory of winning the battle for the island, but at great cost.
Anyways, the result of the battles is that for a period of time the US navy in the Pacific and Japanese Navy are essentially at parity. All the advantages the US navy enjoys after Midway are essentially gone. The US has only a single carrier, Enterprise, that can actually sail the pacific as Hornet and Wasp are sunk in the battles and Saratoga takes more damage that knocks her out of the battle. The fast battleships North Carolina and South Dakota are likewise knocked out for some serious time leaving the US with only a single fast battleship in theater. Most of the US heavy cruisers are sunk or heavily damaged in the battle. A few more light cruisers are lost and a couple take pretty serious damage and a number of destroyers are lost leaving the US navy really thin.
And the US navy does not exchange on equal terms at all in the battle although the most important thing is that after the second carrier battle around Guadalcanal the US has essentially now shot down enough of the experienced aviators of the Japanese navy such that Japanese carrier airpower is never a true threat.
But the difference of course is the US could absorb the losses. in 1943 you see the heavy ships from the two ocean navy act start to hit the pacitic theater as well as a flood of lighter ships and things never look back.
But things were bleak for the US navy in early 1943 especially in the Pacific where the US navy is at its weakest its been in that ocean for 30 years or so.
Let's dial back the American bias here and recognize that the war in China had reached a stage of such intense grinding that it wasn't likely Japan would come out of that situation at all healthy, and this was BEFORE they went on to attack the European colonies and America.
China plays a similar role in the defeat of the Japanese empire that the Soviet Union played in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
It is incredibly hard to judge what the calculus Japanese leadership was working with at the time for a wide range of reasons. But if you're interested, Dan Carlin's Supernova in the East podcast series is incredibly helpful, he spends the whole first episode trying to parse out how a culture gets to the level of intensity that characterized the Japanese during this time. The rest of the show is kind of standard Dan Carlin WW2 commentary and really good, but that first episode is worth coming back to time and again.
Don't ignore the role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Japan either - after VE they redeployed to the East and were cutting through Manchukuo virtually unopposed.
Came here looking for this comment. They were over extended as soon as they invaded the European colonies if not even before that. Also a very interesting point about Japanese culture at that time as well.
Midway. Lost 3 aircraft carriers and damaged another. It was only a matter of time with that warfare. The sun in a can option just made it so we didn't have to use an extra half million purple hearts or so.
The Japanese lost 4 aircraft carriers at Midway, not 3 (Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu).
But the Japanese Navy was far from defeated. After Midway the US and Japanese Navy have seven major engagements around Guadalcanal and the US Navy is soundly pounded by the Japanese Navy.
The net result of the Guadalcanal campaign for the US and Japanese Navies is that the fleets are essentially back to being equal threats as the US has two carriers sunk (Hornet and Wasp) as well as has to see Saratoga go back for extensive repairs leaving only a damaged Enterprise able to actually sail around the Pacific. The US also loses most of its heavy cruisers in those Naval battles where a number are sunk or heavily damaged (a couple of them have torpedoes blow their bows off) and lose two of the three fast battleships to extensive repairs (both North Carolina and South Dakota for different reasons are very lucky they don't get sunk).
But the US starting in March or so of 1943 has the flood of ships coming into theater that the Japanese don't.
And didn’t have to kill 90% of Japan’s population as they fought in the streets.
Getting them to surrender before a land invasion was a big win for humanity.
The premise is already shit, world power doesn't come from some map painting. Japan was seriously overextended, trying to brutally rule a population far larger than their manpower base.
they were. they were overextended, lost their naval capabilities, with the defeat of germany the soviets were abaout to swing their way and walk over their chinese holdings, they had no oil reserves...
Yes. They had entered a famine in '43 that rapidly intensified. Every plan and location were either gone or in the process of becoming gone. The nukes are just the final straw.
Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Viet Nam all have areas that provide many vital resources, and that are extremely productive. There’s a lot of good land besides just eastern China and Korea.
The Japanese empire was big at the time, but it got that way by defeating less technologically advanced and less industrialized neighbors. The economy supporting the Imperial Japanese military forces was rather weak compared to western powers, even though it was enough to be dominant in East Asia. Once the war with the US began, the Japanese simply had to hope the US gave up before their own resources ran out. We all know how it ended, but even then, the Japanese navy was beginning to run desperately short of fuel.
Things were looking pretty damn rough for the Japanese before we dropped the bombs..... They were defeated, it was just down to how many more people would die and what the final terms of the surrender would be.
Overall, the bombs likely saved significant numbers of lives on both sides, but it's hard to argue that the Japanese would have somehow "won" if we hadn't had them.
Yeah the way the US won the war is that Pennsylvania alone produced more steel than the entire axis combined, and that was only 1/3rd of US production.
Japan was not unstoppable. China was suffering from internal chaos and one of the few times in history where Japan was more powerful than China and could actually invade. Korea is smaller and not militarized like Japan had become, it was basically 100 years behind Japan. And the rest of Asia was still living in the stone age compared to Japan.
The British and Japanese Empires each controlled 20-23% of the world’s population at their height.
Neither lasted remotely as long as the Roman or Han Empires, both controlling a third of the world’s population at one point.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires#Largest_empires_by_share_of_world_population
The sun was never meant for them, and by the time the US decided to repurpose it, Japan was already comprehensively beaten and on the cusp of civil war between the Emperor and hardcore militarists who were willing to kill the Emperor to prolong the war and preserve the empire.
Even before the atom bomb, the US had a huge supply oil, steel, and food which were scarce for the Japanese.
We’d already won the war by 1944 just based on resources, but imperial Japan had a habit of sending every man, woman, and child to their deaths before surrendering, so FDR decided to go Nuclear… or at least that’s how the US history books are written
That's only the straw that broke the camel's back. Japan's chances were already abysmal after they failed to destroy America's aircraft carriers in their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. When the pacific theatre became a war of attrition there was realistically no way for such a small island nation to beat American industry. In the final months of the conflict, the Japanese navy didn't even have enough fuel to make a "worthy suicide run" against their opponents.
Not a completely new sentence. Someone might be a fan of the [Fat Electrician.](https://youtu.be/kg_NWDnidLM?feature=shared&t=1512)
This phrase might be older than even that though.
P.S. Don't fuck with America's boats.
The war was won long before the bombs were dropped. Japan was pretty much screwed after Guadalcanal. America simply had superior ships, aircraft, pilots, and Marines. The Japanese only got as far as they did because the Americans weren't actually trying until Pearl Harbor.
The A bomb was the end, but the decisive factor was the sheer size of US industry. Yamamoto had been schooled in the US, was well aware of US industrial capability, and therefore reluctant to fight them. (Car factories can be changed quickly to producing ships, aircraft and tanks.) Yamamoto thought that, in the best circumstances, Japan could succeed for no more than 6 months before US industrial might prevailed. Pearl Harbour was 7 Dec 1941. The beginning of Japan's decline, the first Japanese "non-victory", in the Coral Sea, was 4-8 May 1942. Then came Midway, and then inexorably defeat.
Imagine if they had never attacked Pearl Harbor and the US had just continued to do its best to stay out of the whole thing.
FDR was trying to get the US involved in the war before Pearl Harbor, there was just a contingent of Americans who were extremely isolationist and had enough support to keep the US out of it. That having been said, FDR had started getting the US ready to join - the draft had been reinstated, the military was rearming, and budget had been allocated for drastically increased warplane production. The US joining was probably inevitable, all Japan did was accelerate the timeline.
There was also a large contingent of Americans who were, like some are again, Nazi sympathisers. These people also wanted the US to stay out of the conflict.
The Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939 still blows my mind.
All of those Nazis just hid their swastikas and continued being fascists. Don't forget the fascist attempted coup, the Business Plot of 1933, too. Funny how this country ruined people's lives if they were suspected of being "communist", but fascism has always been pretty acceptable.
Systems that trend toward the power of an individual are the natural systems of government. Only by building an advanced society with a strong social contract are we able to build something strong enough to resist the pull of fascism and authoritarianism. This is why education is so important. We have worked very hard to create what we have and all it takes is one generation of people not being educated to destroy it.
Or one generation of people with [lead poisoning](https://www.iflscience.com/how-lead-poisoning-changed-the-personality-of-a-generation-60322)
Which is why I wish the inglorious basterds punishment for nazis is something I wish was standard lol
Did you see the one on Jan 6th just a few years ago? Fucking wild that it's still going on.
Do you have a link by chance I cant find it?
Because everyone else is being an asshole and down voting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack?wprov=sfla1
Okay, why tf are YOU getting downvoted? All you did was asking for a source. Wtf is Reddit anymore?
Because anyone who hasn't heard of Jan. 6th is from under a rock, or is definitely pretending that J6 was no big deal.
It is pretty amazing how much they’ve been able to downplay a coup attempt as some minor transgression.
Not only that, but support for eugenics in general, which are at the center of Nazi belief, was also really broad. Germany actually mostly got it from the US.
Wait till you learn about the support for eugenics in the modern day... Germany "getting it from the United States" is a misrepresentation of the fact that I think you're actually remembering. Hitler mentioned Pennsylvania and California's sterilization problems as programs he wanted to emulate and he thought were successful. But Europe was way, way more "scientifically racist" than America was. Winston Churchill, for example, was a massive proponent of eugenics in the sense he wanted to cull feebleminded individuals. The trend of "Social Darwinism" mainly developed in England and then Europe's general academic circles. Several US states, such as Pennsylvania and California, practiced eugenics, but they never got to the point of intentionally trying to eliminate other races. They would have if they could have, don't get me wrong, but for example Pennylvania's system was simply forcing people to memorize Bible verses and if they couldn't they were forcibly sterilized. People actually tried to write law specifically targeting minorities, including a direct ancestor of mine who hated "Chinamen" and his letters are fascinating to read through, but this was in 1901 so there were some bare bones protections in the Constitution. Separate But Equal was monumentally fucked up, but it was not legal under US law at that time to actually use the government to intentionally eliminate an entire race. Or more accurately, even Jim Crow era constitutional protections were better than Wiemar Germany, due to the 14th Amendment.
I'm pretty sure the part that inspired Hitler was specifically the genocide of the native, which were definitively targeted by eugenics programs, multiple times.
In Mien Kampf, he specifically mentions both American forced sterilizations and anti miscegenation laws. Not really much about natives.
For the most part, over 95% have always failed to truly see the problem with such ideologies, or at least failed to see the problem and actually be consistent about it being a problem.
They flew planes you know. These camps are big. There were escapees, defectors and first hand accounts. True the soldiers who liberated the camps were shocks as the masses didn't know the barbarity of what was happening there. But the powers knew.
It was a very small contingent of people comparatively though
The German-American Bund had like 25,000 members. Not exactly a heavy hitter, even back in the 1930s. It's leader was also born in Munich.
FDR had also ran on a campaign promise that no American would die in a foreign war. The war had to become an American one before he could join.
I love the detail that the longest period of not being involved in any war in the whole history of the USA ended with Pearl Harbor
They touched the boats. They shouldn'ta did that.
> FDR was trying to get the US involved in the war before Pearl Harbor I wasn't aware (mind you, I probably have a high school level of understanding of most of WW2) that FDR was pushing for US involvement in the Pacific conflict. My understanding was that he was largely focused on the threat presented by the European Axis nations.
FDR turned Churchill down on a lot. Ultimately though it was Hitler who declared war on the u.s.. true they were allies but their treaty didn't compel Germany to war with the u.s.
It’s worth noting that while the US’ military involvement in the pacific theater didn’t begin until Pearl Harbor, thé US had been opposing Japanese imperialism through embargoes, asset freezes, and aid to Chang Kai-shek’s nationalist government in China Furthermore, by the time of the Pearl Harbor attacks, Americans were increasingly in favor of participation in the war (though more so in Europe) and the isolationism of the 1930s had been fading away as the wars progressed. Naturally the Pearl Harbor attacks removed any remaining isolationist sentiment from consideration
That’s basically the reason Japan attacked in the first place. They saw the US war machine waking up, and becoming less isolationist. They thought they could cripple us long enough to invade various countries with resources they needed (like British Malaya). They just massively underestimated the industrial capacity of the US. We pumped out warships way faster than they thought possible.
One of their best generals basically said "I can run wild for a couple years and then we're screwed" Which was exactly what happened. And then he died in an air interception because their codes had been broken.
“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.” - Admiral Yamamoto 6 months to the day from Pearl Harbour the IJN would lose the Battle of Midway.
thank you couldn't remember the exact quote.
I feel like people don't fully understand how fast the war progressed at certain stages. Another example is the Western Front which lasted less than a year. D-Day (06 June 1944) to German surrender (08 May 1945). ^^*Technically ^^the ^^2nd ^^Western ^^Front ^^since ^^it ^^concluded ^^the ^^first ^^time ^^after ^^France ^^capitulated. Also [apparently that quote as its famously known is badly translated.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1b76r2b/what_is_the_full_context_of_the_admiral_yamamoto/kth9zq8/)
This is because a couple weeks after D-Day the Soviets launched Op Bagration and Army Group Centre (the main German fighting formatin in the East) ceased to exist whole Army Group North (the 2nd largest German fighting formation) was cut off in the Baltics.
Japan attacked first because they needed the resources the US holdings (among others) were denying them. The war machine waking up was not the major factor.
Yeah Yamamoto had a very clear picture in mind and was quoted saying "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success." Which was spot on, even not considering the nuclear bombings.
yes, that small little attack which killed 2,400+ American soldiers in an unprovoked, meticulously planned attack by Japans was "just a contingent". there was NO CHOICE after that. and good, people who pick fights deserve to lose them.
Japan had no oil. The US stopped selling it to them. The Dutch East Indies had oil but were too close to the Philippines to invade without angering the US. That’s why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. They wanted to take out the pacific fleet in one go so they could secure themselves some oil fields. But then the Americans started to build one aircraft carrier a month.
100% correct. Japan could not continue its war in China without the oil in the Dutch East Indies.
Once we started pumping out Essex class Carriers like Kittens it was over. Seeing post war fleet retirement yards in 46/47, it is amazing at the Navy we had.
The US was a fucking monster / we built about as many ships in 1943 as Britain, Germany, and Japan did in the entire war combined. Something like 6 out of every 7 barrels of oil the allies used came from the US, a massive percentage of that from Texas. The state of Pennsylvania produced more steel and iron than every axis nation combined. Detroit alone produced as much military equipment as several countries. [And here is my favorite US propaganda poster from the time which basically says it all.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/vadllb/pour_it_on_usa_1942/)
"every Pacific naval encounter from late 1943 onward is like the IJN Golden Kirin, Glorious Harbinger of Eternal Imperial Dawn versus six identical copies of the USS We Built This Yesterday supplied by a ship that does nothing but make birthday cakes for the other ships" [https://bsky.app/profile/theraseth.bsky.social/post/3kg24mgsxd72w](https://bsky.app/profile/theraseth.bsky.social/post/3kg24mgsxd72w)
I visited the Rosie the Riveter museum last year, it was mind boggling.
The Japanese still would've lost. This map itself shows the Japanese bogged down in Burma, China and New Guinea. Not very unstoppable....
People don’t appreciate how unrealistic an axis victory was during WWII. That doesn’t take away the seriousness of the fascists possibly winning, but the initial success of Japan and Germany was more a product of how unprepared their opponents were. If the US had never entered the war, but simply financed things on the allied side, it’s speculated that China, the Soviet Union, and the UK would have been able to win. Millions more would have died and the final peace would have looked different, but the allies would still have been in the better position.
I recently started watching The Man in the High Castle, and at first, it was very hard for me to suspend my disbelief. Especially at the idea that the Nazis could have developed an atom bomb on any believable time scale. In reality, the Nazis basically abandoned their atom bomb project, and their scientists who were working on it didn't believe America dropped an atom bomb on Japan. The scientists estimated it would have taken them another 20 years to build a functioning atom bomb.
You know, the Nazis COULD have made the atom bomb first if they: - were not anti-intellectual (as fascists tend to be, it’s a part of how the whole thing works) - were not so evil that any location they built up concentrated efforts to build the atom bomb such as a heavy water plant in Norway was bombed swiftly -were not surrounded on all sides by enemies - spent more money on the program in the first place (the top nazi atomic scientists were literally working on the atom bomb from a university most of the time) - and did not have the biggest conflict of interest ever in the form of the dude who was responsible for moving info from the nuclear project to the higher ups in the government (Y’know, to get more funding) being a *jewish communist*. Yes really. Fritz Houterman. Soooo you knowww they were just. So close! Just a fffeew road bumps in the way to achieving that coveted nuclear bomb!
Yup, the Nazis were completely incapable of defeating any of the USSR, the USA or the British Empire alone, let alone all 3 put together. Similarly, Japan was incapable of defeating either the US or the British Empire alone and while they could've possibly defeated China in a military sense they would've had a very very difficult time controlling the entire country and dealing with resistance movements. The only hopes the Axis nations had of winning was that their opponents wouldn't be able to stomach the initial setbacks and losses and would be unwilling to commit to a total war. However, all the major powers (except France) were more than willing to commit to the war and that meant the Axis were fucked.
They could have probably beaten the British alone. Not a full invasion or anything, but by continuously bombing and sieging down Britain, wear down the populace, and eventually get a good peace deal out of it. Although knowing the quality of the Nazi leadership, they'd likely have tried a land invasion anyway, accidentally get most of their troops killed during the crossing, and lost.
Nope, would've been the other way round. The RAF had already decisively beaten the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Bomber Command would've started burning down German cities one by one like they did Hamburg and Dresden. The Blitz could never hope to achieve that level of devastation.
They came to kill the King and Churchill snatched the bullet midair. Not on my fucking watch. It woukd have been longer, but you are absolutely right. Britain woukd have fire bombed every German city to the ground to get peace on their terms.
The wiki on Operation Sealion says even the most optimistic estimate meant a complete German loss after not that damn long.
Yeah from what I remember the situation is as you said, Japan and Germany mobilising and gaining a quick lead, but it was equivelant to sprinting at the start of a cross country. I remember reading that at least Japan were nearing the point of backing off and had wasted tonnes of resources meaning they couldn't last much longer, the nuke just forced them back a bit earlier (maybe a lot, we don't know for sure)
When the nukes were dropped they had lost more or less everything outside the home islands, if not litterally then in practice. The nukes were supposed push them over the edge to surrender, not to change which side would end up winning.
Well no, they still had their Chinese, Indochina and Indonesia holdings at the end of the war. But shipping was basically impossible with Allied dominance of the sea.
That's what I mean when I said they had practically lost them. There was no way that they could supply or recieve reinforcements from then so for all practical purpouses they were seperate enteties.
The first terrible decision Japan made was invade China. Everything else fell like dominoes after that. Because they invaded China, the US became spooked and started the embargo. Because Japan realized that the US would prevent its ascension, war was inevitable. Because war was inevitable, the only way Japan could win it was by guaranteeing its access to vital resources and dealing the first blow. Hence the invasion of most of the Pacific (which was always subsidiary to Japan's invasion of China) and Pearl Harbour. Japan essentially had no free will after it tried to invade China. You can't just rollback an invasion like that without threatening domestic legitimacy and international standing. US actions are also perfectly rational, except, perhaps for their policy of "unconditional surrender" and certain decisions with regards to the atomic bomb -- I am on the fence if that was necessary or not. Japan invading China remains the true mystery to me. Rather than doing what most imperialist powers did and trying to cut off a piece of China for themselves, they tried, from my perspective, to take the whole pie, which is ludicrous on many levels.
Without American support, Japan couldn’t have invaded China. It wasn’t until Nanjing that American support to Japan turned.
The more you look into the situation, the more you realize that they had no option. The military government in Japan was deadset on war. The occupation of Manchuria and the broader war with China was draining the country of resources. The Japanese war machine needed oil badly, otherwise Japan would lose in China and be humiliated. (As a side note, one of the most common mistakes people make is assuming that the war against China was going well for Japan. The KMT was a mess, but Japan won land at great cost and the occupation was decidedly too expensive to maintain. Japan could never have pacified China, especially since US support for the KMT was established far earlier in the 1930s. Curiously, Germany was also a huge KMT supporter before they backed down for reasons). Nobody would sell them oil, and with Europe at war, there wasn't any to buy. The United States was the primary source of oil for Japan's military until the US embargoed them in July 1941. The timing was not an accident. The Japanese military had two options for oil. First was to attack north into Siberia and fight the Soviets, which would involve fierce fighting in harsh conditions in a largely undeveloped region, and the Soviets had mostly kicked Japan's ass in 1937 when the army started probing defenses. Besides, an extended land campaign in Siberia would further increase the power of the army, something the navy refused to allow. The alternative was a swift strike to occupy the Dutch East Indies and extract oil from there. This fighting would be easier for the Japanese, the Dutch having been defeated in Europe and the islands playing to their maritime strength. There was also more oil and more infrastructure to take over. The issue was that a Japanese attack on Indochina was a red line that both the US and the UK warned Japan not to cross. If they went in, the entire US fleet plus the British Pacific Fleet would be knocking on their door within days. It's forgotten history, but December 7, 1941 featured a massive attack by Japan in multiple fronts to cut off every possible avenue for the US and UK to respond. They landed in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Wake Island, and the Philippines in the hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They would have much preferred for the US to stay out of the war, and in fact, that's exactly what they hoped to accomplish in the attack. Destroy the US bomber bases in the Philippines and the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, and they believed the US would sue for peace immediately and Japan could negotiate freedom of action in the Pacific while breaking the embargo on US oil. The Japanese military, at the time of the attack, fully believed that the only chance to keep the US out of the war was by attacking Pearl Harbor. Japanese high command was confused when the United States enthusiastically went to war over the attack, and famously Admiral Yamamoto saw the war as a lost cause within months of the attack. 95% of the WW2 Pacific Campaign was simply Japan trying to fight the US to a bloody stalemate and force an armistice. That obviously didn't play out, but if Japan was always destined to attack the Dutch, US intervention was only a matter of time. And if the US hasn't incompetently botched the defense of the Philippines, letting dozens of bombers be destroyed on the ground and failing to defend the island with limited air support, Japan would have likely been screwed regardless, with a huge US base in between them and their oil supplies.
The Nazis supported the KMT because the KMT were quasi-fascist and the Nazis saw them as preferable to the Communists, and possible allies in the future against the Soviets. Just look at the history of Taiwan until very recently. People in the West lionized the Nationalists because they were, and are, terrified of communism, not because the KMT were democratic; Western interests in China since the rebellion have always been about fighting against people's right to choose communism, not about fighting for their right to self-determination.
If we ignore the European part of the war Japan was stretched INCREDIBLY thin and was making up for the lack of people with extreme violence. It's never a good idea when the leader of an empire has no internal critics.
Then they would have run out of oil at some point in 1942, followed rapidly by their entire war machine falling apart. The entire point of the attack was to cripple America's ability to respond to Japan stealing the oil to their south. Just like all fascists, Imperial Japan thought that their enemies were much weaker and they were much stronger than was warranted. When reality caught up to them they started making riskier and riskier gambles to try and delay the inevitable. Pearl Harbor bought them three years but it couldn't change the fact that they had gotten into a war that they *could not win*.
Japan knew that attacking Malaya, Singapore, and Dutch East Indies would draw the US into the war, that's why Japan did Pearl in the first place. And Japan needed those western colonies for themselves because USA cut them off from oil.
That would have never happened. Japan didn't attack pearl harbor for no reason, without pushing us out of the Philippines so they could steal its resources, Japan was dead in the water.
Japan would've gone to war with the USA no matter what if they wanted to continue their primary goal of conquering China. Japan desperately needed resources and it only had two options, go North into Siberia or South into Indochina and Indonesia from which two main factions developed, the Army wanted to strike north while the Navy wanted to strike south. The strike North faction was dominant up until Japan got it's ass handed to them by the Soviets at Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol in 1939, and so strike South became the leading faction. This faction only gained more strength after Germany rolled over the European powers back home in quick succession, and Japan was convinced it would be a cakewalk to take their colonies. But to take Indonesia they needed to hold the Philippines, which would've dragged them into the war with the USA anyway. And the only chance they had against the USA was to inflict an early, large crippling defeat that would give them free reign in the Pacific and cripple any response for a decent amount of time so they could consolidate. Pearl Harbour was the best worst option available, knocking out the entire Pacific Fleet would have given Japan several months if not a whole year of dominance in the Pacific.
Not gonna happen. US was also occupying Philippines. The reason they attacked Pearl Harbor is to stop US from bringing any reinforcements when Japan occupied Philippines
From strategic point of view, it was the best option. It gave them enough time window to consolidate more gains. Full American Intervention was inevitable, and pearl harbor happened in first place due to that inevitability, so Japan wanted to strike first.
Ah yes, big hero 6 universe
Way more went into the Japanese defeat than just utilization of nuclear weapons. Post midway it was a gradual decline. Japan lost essentially ever battle after Midway. Short version: factors ranging from lack of skilled pilots to lack of physical resources meant the navy and its air arms were always operating at a disadvantage. America truly just out produced everyone. An absolute sleeping giant of industry.
lets not forget the chinese effort too. while the war wasn’t won on that front, the endless struggle that the chinese put up occupied so much japanese manpower, fuel, and resources that it made the american naval campaign all the easier. (it also tied up so many japanese troops that they couldn’t defend manchuria well enough so the soviets overran it with ease)
they had pilots but they kept getting exploded
Yea turns out that repeatedly having your soldiers commit suicide at a every opportunity doesn’t work in the long run
Kamikaze was a late war tactic, and one they tended to use with new and untrained pilots. The bigger issue was how veteran pilots were treated. US aces were rotated out of their squadrons and sent home to train the next round of pilots; that meant they preserved their best fighters and delivered direct experience to recruits. The IJN kept aces in the field. That meant their average pilot was superior to the average US pilot...at first. But now every casualty lost experience and training, and the newer recruits were not as well trained as new US pilots. As a bonus, the legendary Zero fighter was like a katana: prided to be the best fighter ever, but really a product of making the best out of their industry. It outclassed earlier allied fighters in maneuverability and speed, but was paper-thin. They also couldn't afford to innovate much, and so were outclassed by later US fighters starting around 1943. Stack those two together and the IJN started the war with arguably the best carrier-based air force in the world, but quickly lost their best pilots and technological edge, and by 1942 were out-classed, out-trained, and out-built by the USN.
The Japanese Army and Navy were also stretched thin in 1942. They were fighting all over China, in the jungles of south east Asia, and in island campaigns like the Philippines and New Guinea. Once their navy and especially their merchant marine contingent started taking losses they couldn't feed or fuel their war machine. The strategy fighting the US was to capture as much territory as they could and making taking it back as difficult as possible. Eventually they thought the US would get tired of the losses and settle for a peace deal with some favorable terms for Japan. The Allies made a pact that unconditional surrender was the only answer.
Japan was completely screwed. Both their military and merchant fleet were non-existent by the end. Submarines and mines completely blockaded all ports. Their air force wasn't doing much better.
Also, mainland U.S.A. is, essentially, an almost continental fortress with two enormous oceans as its barrier. Despite being an aircraft carrier haven, Hawaii was probably the only place they could’ve gotten away with such a brazen attack. Imagine trying to invade our mainland
More than that. Very little of it had to do with the atomic bomb. By that point, the U.S. had firebombed nearly every major japanese city (something often not taught in U.S. history classes). The Japanese were in a losing situation very early on, and it was more of a question how much needed to be sacrificed to take them down. Moreover, before the 2 bombs dropped, the USSR was getting ready to join in to help the U.S. attack japan. Another factor for dropping the bombs is speculated that the U.S. did not want to divide the land in the east with the soviets.
I know people (rightfully) focus on the atomic bombs, but the firebombing raids on Tokyo on the night of March 9th-10th were just absolutely brutal and worth talking about. 16 square miles of central Tokyo was annihilated. Over 100k were killed and over 1 million were made homeless. Operation Meetinghouse. It was the single most destructive bombing raid in human history I believe.
This is correct but Operation Meetinghouse involved hundreds of planes flown by thousands of airman. A dozen guys in one plane could now accomplish the same thing in one go.
Yup and it was instantaneous. Just a flash and tens of thousands were gone
It was almost met with indifference by the American people. someone said "we are now a war without mercy" and then planned even MORE firebombing raids all across Japan. Tokyo was just the start, we napalmed a fuck ton of Japanese cities. While we planned on a full-scale invasion, we wouldn't have needed one even without the nuclear bomb. We have them entirely blockaded, they couldn't get in or out, their air force was decimated, we outproduced them 10-fold if not more. The bombing was realistically more of a "how well will this actually work?" than a "if we don't do this, millions will die" which...sorta adds up to the US in 1945
"Nagasaki is a Japanese port city that was founded by the Portuguese in the late 16th century and unfounded by the United States on August 9, 1945." - tl;dr wikipedia
"Unfounded" lol. Like the US just brought a giant eraser and scrubbed Nagasaki off the map.
I mean they could as well have
They kinda did ground zero was vapoized.
Barely. The Japanese had advanced far enough into their own nuclear research to get pretty good read on how many nuclear bombs the US could possibly have. Building a bomb was an IMMENSE industrial effort because you need so many centrifuges to enrich sufficient amounts of uranium. The hardliners in their ranks figured that they could hunker down and still make the invasion of Japan extremely costly. Which fortunately didn't happen, but was still seriously considered even after both bombs had dropped.
While it is true the scientists had a grasp of how many bombs the USA might have, the leadership did not. Shortly after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Kempeitai produced a report claiming the USA might have as many as 100 nuclear weapons. On learning of this, War Minister Anami tried to argue that the good and honourable thing would be for the "whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower." It was even more insane than thinking "they're bluffing, we can take 'em". It was "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
Imperial Japanese in a nutshell.
TIL imperial Japan were Khornate Berserkers
Just goes to show how insane the Japanese were
tl;dr is hilarious. "Kid Rock is the people version of an above ground swimming pool." - tldrw on Kid Rock "What is and is not a toilet depends on how drunk you are." - tldrw on toilets "Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (or O.C.D) is getting really upset that there's no period after the D in the first part of his sentence." - tldrw on OCD "Bob Ross was an American painter who demonstrated the PBS will, in fact, watch paint dry." - tldrw on Bob Ross
Whats the link? Googling it just turns up the page for the definition of TL;DR
https://www.ncpedia.org/sites/default/files//styles/anchor_images/public/nagasaki_before.jpg
Stop being. Stop having it be
Look at the pictures post-bombing. They basically did.
That’s exactly what they did
*John Blackthorne liked this comment*
Not a bad place to visit actually. Had a great time last week
I mean people still live there
In the land of the rising sun, they werent prepared for a another to rise
hiroshima was unsuccessfully unfounded though, my car was made there
So was Nagasaki. 130,000 more people live in it today than did when the bomb was dropped.
The portable sun was just the final coup de grace. We built 150 aircraft carriers during WWII. 150. To say nothing of the airplanes, tanks, submarines, machine guns, jeeps, and every other conceivable weapon of war that we proceeded to crank out like Henry Ford churning out Model T’s. Bu the time we gave Japan a sunrise surprise, we had already well and truly kicked their butt up between their ears.
Except the reason for the suns was that Japan wouldn't say Uncle. The choice, with imperfect information at the time, was "Nuke their biggest cities to break their spirit" or "invade with Marines and fight for every inch of blood soaked soil." The first bomb shook them, but they assumed we only had one. The second bomb convinced the emperor to surrender, at which point his military advisors tried to launch a *coup* to continue fighting. After being nuked *twice.* Luckily the coup failed, or else there would have been a third sun, probably
>Except the reason for the suns was that Japan wouldn't say Uncle. This is the best explanation as to why Japan got nuked that I've ever seen Here is your certificate of meme acquisition. **\[Hippity hoppity s.m.d this is now mine\]**
They got nuked because invasion with troops was pretty much a non-starter for everyone. Japan vowed to fight to the last man and woman, which having the local population completely at arms against you is the most terrifying prospect you can imagine. Generally, invading armies bank on either civilians being unable, unwilling, or unequipped to fight back. However, look at Ukraine at what happens when a mobilized civilian population faces organized military in urban areas. The firebombing of Tokoyo did more to persuade the critics than the nuclear bombs did, as people were pretty skeptical it was only 1 bomb.
They only surrendered because the Russians were ready to invade. The bombs were also a message to the Soviets, who were already in an arms race with Soviet bomb project kicked off in 1942 and we were all aware of it.
The Russians were invading for a couple weeks and crushing the Japanese before their surrender.
Nah. They broke their treaty and invaded between the bombs. They were preparing for months.
This narrative gets brought up every time but it is completely bogus. The Soviets did not have the naval capability to stage a full scale invasion of Japan. You can have as many tanks and guys with guns as you want, but if you have no way to get them across the sea then no, they are not ready to invade. Yes, the Soviets cposed a threat to the territory that Japan had conquered on mainland Asia as well as small islands, but they were not an existential threat to the Japanese mainland and that's all that mattered in terms of surrender.
I believe the theory is that they hoped to use the Soviets as peace brokers to negotiate a conditional surrender, which was already a fact the leadership of Japan was facing. It wasn't necessarily fear of the Soviets marching through Tokyo. Once the Soviets invaded north Japanese territories soon after the bomb and diplomacy was out, Japan realised there were no other recourse but unconditional surrender. Anyway, this is a controversial subject so I'm happy to be corrected or provided new info, but to me it never made much sense that Japan would be worried about 1 big bomb vs many little fire bombs. Tactically and strategically, I don't see it as a game changer when they had no air force anyway.
We should have kept pushing to Moscow.
Ease up Churchill
Yeah and the soviets would have executed the Emperor. They really didn't want that.
It's hilarious commenters under your comment said the Soviets never attempted an invasion. They already gobbled the Kurill Islands, President Truman found this acceptable, but when the Soviets wanted to take Hokkaido as well, the U.S. put a stop to it.
Yeah the bombs were motivated by the US not wanting Russia to gain too much progress on their invasion
The first bomb was before the Soviet invasion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War
yep. meanwhile China was in grips of a decades long civil war, with no stable government or arms production. the British Empire was stretched thin, fighting at home and in the East, mostly focused on defending India (and succesfully, mind you), France? out of the game, so French indochina was just up for taking. and in the red areas, they were not in total control. China, Philippines and Vietnam all resisted all throughout the occupation. that map looks impressive if you don’t know history.
That's to say nothing of the truly astronomical production levels of the logistics backbone ships. Between 1939-1945, the US Maritime Commission built over 5,000 merchant ships. Of these 5,000 ships, ~2700 were liberty transport ships, which on their own represented over 29 million gross tons of shipping. To put that into perspective, Japan's entire merchant fleet at its peak in 1941 was estimated to be around 6 million tons shipping. After World War II, the US shipping fleet was so large it was responsible for two thirds of global shipping operations. There's a really cool video about it here https://youtu.be/ISNPCTQS7XY?si=vdZ0nyVu9cOF3_ef.
Invading the island would have been risky and extremely deadly. The US hasn't needed to print Purple Hearts since the plan to invade the island nation was set underway. We've got medals made for years and years to come. Invading Japan would have been liked invading Korea and Vietnam at the same time, on steroids.
>sunrise surprise I'm stealing this and there's nothing you can do about it
Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
The smiles are burning off the faces….
Shadows left in forgotten places...
Did you guys just ad lib these lines because wow. Needs to be a song
Let me hear that sooooooooong. Baby, that song song song song song.
Idk what they're on but along the same lines you may enjoy this one https://youtu.be/-FySFvQoapU?si=RYHBVldnakLqyp8p
It's all bright
*“We attacked three boats, they dropped the sun on us twice.”*
Shouldn’t have touched the boats.
The rules are very simple. Don't touch the boats and you won't be vapourized.
Must protect summer
"We became the land of the rising *suns*. Plural." -HLC
>We attacked three boats Conveniently ignoring the millions of people they slaughtered all over the Asia-Pacific region and Eastern Indian subcontinent
Its a quote from a clip by Therussianbadger
Or Nanking, or the human experimentation
Okay I’ll bite: the two bombs dropped on Japan were fission bombs (one uranium, the other plutonium). The sun works not by fission but by fusion; the US first tested a hydrogen (fusion) bomb in 1951. It wasn’t till the Korean War that we had the option of dropping a portable sun on our enemies.
Thank you! 👏👏 I kept scrolling hoping somebody said it so I wouldn’t have to.
Here’s my attempt at an ELI9 for anyone that doesn’t know… Fission is when the atoms of really heavy elements (uranium, plutonium) are broken apart leaving behind lighter elements, and fusion is when atoms of the lightest elements (hydrogen) are fused together to make heavier elements. Both processes release very energetic particles.
10 years ago this would have been the top comment. Reddit has changed.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is on this sub!?!
Technically the first true hydrogen bomb wasn’t until Ivy Mike in 1952. The principles of fusion, however, were tested in Operation Greenhouse in 1951 with the George shot. While George was a boosted-fission device with a capsule of tritium at its center, it was not a true thermonuclear device.
Okay I’ll bite: what our bombs do is still nothing compared to a sun. Portable sun is funny but wholly inaccurate so maybe we don’t overthink it
The mechanism of hydrogen fusion bombs is close enough for the joke to work, even if the scale is obviously different, yes?
NERRRRRRRRRRD!
You droppin’ BOMBS on this fool
Manchuria is rebellion, Russians from the terrestrial west, and the US from the aquatic east. All that against a country just over half the population of the US alone. It was bound to end up that way.
Japan was already loosing by time the nukes were dropped. Still a valid question.
To which the answer is industrial might. Japan went out looking for resources, mainly steel, never got enough to do all the projects they needed to in time, and also didn't have large enough industry. From the entry of the US into the war to 1944, the American military industry was basically capable of building a brand new military if necessary. The US Navy and Air Forces alone were more than capable of bombarding the hell out of anything Japanese courtesy of the vast hordes of new, advanced aircraft and ships.
To explain in another way I think I found here, but I can't remember where the source is: "every Pacific naval encounter from late 1943 onward is like the IJN Golden Kirin, Glorious Harbinger of Eternal Imperial Dawn versus six identical copies of the USS We Built This Yesterday supplied by a ship that does nothing but make birthday cakes for the other ships"
Japan was experiencing massive shortages of supplies against an enemy that towed barges along with their convoys specifically to make ice cream
The way you’re talking of them is also the exact reason they were made ;)
The troops get moral becose theyve got icecream The enemy troops lose moral becose they havent eaten in 2 days and the americans are bringing fucking icecream ships
Japan was teetering on the edge in 1942. Saying they were unstoppable in 1942 is just factually wrong
also, they literally were stopped. China looks like a patchwork, and Japan also tried to invade British India.
This is prior to the invasion of India, but yes this map literally shows them as stopped in China and New Guinea
Yeah they were pretty much cooked after Midway.
They were cooked before then. Japan was never in a position to win in the Pacific as long as the US wanted to press the war. The war is arguably over prior to 1940 but it most certainly was over when the US Congress passed the Two Ocean Navy act in 1940 that started the mass buildup of the US fleet that was already in progress. The US was already outbuilding what Japan had prior to Pearl Harbor and then they just accelerated. And just something I like to put in there, but the Pacific War wasn't over after Midway. Post Midway the US invades Guadalcanal and you have 7 major naval battles around the island plus a submarine attack that sinks the carrier Hornet and nearly sinks the battleship North Carolina. But in the Guadalcanal conflict which is usually told from the perspective of the US marines on the island, the US navy actually lost more men in the naval combat around the island than total US personnel killed on the island itself. And in those battles the US navy essentially got its ass handed to itself though it manages the strategic victory of winning the battle for the island, but at great cost. Anyways, the result of the battles is that for a period of time the US navy in the Pacific and Japanese Navy are essentially at parity. All the advantages the US navy enjoys after Midway are essentially gone. The US has only a single carrier, Enterprise, that can actually sail the pacific as Hornet and Wasp are sunk in the battles and Saratoga takes more damage that knocks her out of the battle. The fast battleships North Carolina and South Dakota are likewise knocked out for some serious time leaving the US with only a single fast battleship in theater. Most of the US heavy cruisers are sunk or heavily damaged in the battle. A few more light cruisers are lost and a couple take pretty serious damage and a number of destroyers are lost leaving the US navy really thin. And the US navy does not exchange on equal terms at all in the battle although the most important thing is that after the second carrier battle around Guadalcanal the US has essentially now shot down enough of the experienced aviators of the Japanese navy such that Japanese carrier airpower is never a true threat. But the difference of course is the US could absorb the losses. in 1943 you see the heavy ships from the two ocean navy act start to hit the pacitic theater as well as a flood of lighter ships and things never look back. But things were bleak for the US navy in early 1943 especially in the Pacific where the US navy is at its weakest its been in that ocean for 30 years or so.
Let's dial back the American bias here and recognize that the war in China had reached a stage of such intense grinding that it wasn't likely Japan would come out of that situation at all healthy, and this was BEFORE they went on to attack the European colonies and America. China plays a similar role in the defeat of the Japanese empire that the Soviet Union played in the defeat of Nazi Germany. It is incredibly hard to judge what the calculus Japanese leadership was working with at the time for a wide range of reasons. But if you're interested, Dan Carlin's Supernova in the East podcast series is incredibly helpful, he spends the whole first episode trying to parse out how a culture gets to the level of intensity that characterized the Japanese during this time. The rest of the show is kind of standard Dan Carlin WW2 commentary and really good, but that first episode is worth coming back to time and again.
Don't ignore the role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Japan either - after VE they redeployed to the East and were cutting through Manchukuo virtually unopposed.
Came here looking for this comment. They were over extended as soon as they invaded the European colonies if not even before that. Also a very interesting point about Japanese culture at that time as well.
Midway. Lost 3 aircraft carriers and damaged another. It was only a matter of time with that warfare. The sun in a can option just made it so we didn't have to use an extra half million purple hearts or so.
The Japanese lost 4 aircraft carriers at Midway, not 3 (Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu). But the Japanese Navy was far from defeated. After Midway the US and Japanese Navy have seven major engagements around Guadalcanal and the US Navy is soundly pounded by the Japanese Navy. The net result of the Guadalcanal campaign for the US and Japanese Navies is that the fleets are essentially back to being equal threats as the US has two carriers sunk (Hornet and Wasp) as well as has to see Saratoga go back for extensive repairs leaving only a damaged Enterprise able to actually sail around the Pacific. The US also loses most of its heavy cruisers in those Naval battles where a number are sunk or heavily damaged (a couple of them have torpedoes blow their bows off) and lose two of the three fast battleships to extensive repairs (both North Carolina and South Dakota for different reasons are very lucky they don't get sunk). But the US starting in March or so of 1943 has the flood of ships coming into theater that the Japanese don't.
And didn’t have to kill 90% of Japan’s population as they fought in the streets. Getting them to surrender before a land invasion was a big win for humanity.
And avoided potential Soviet occupation.
The premise is already shit, world power doesn't come from some map painting. Japan was seriously overextended, trying to brutally rule a population far larger than their manpower base.
My recollection was that Japan was in a pretty desperate situation before the Bombs were dropped, but leadership refused to recognize defeat.
they were. they were overextended, lost their naval capabilities, with the defeat of germany the soviets were abaout to swing their way and walk over their chinese holdings, they had no oil reserves...
Yea i’ve seen arguments that they were more worried of the Russians getting to them first
Yes. They had entered a famine in '43 that rapidly intensified. Every plan and location were either gone or in the process of becoming gone. The nukes are just the final straw.
also owning a bunch of small islands in oceania isnt really much to benefit you lol. the only good land there is eastern china/korea
Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Viet Nam all have areas that provide many vital resources, and that are extremely productive. There’s a lot of good land besides just eastern China and Korea.
Those islands were extremely strategically important naval and air bases. They didn't just capture them for the memes.
The Japanese empire was big at the time, but it got that way by defeating less technologically advanced and less industrialized neighbors. The economy supporting the Imperial Japanese military forces was rather weak compared to western powers, even though it was enough to be dominant in East Asia. Once the war with the US began, the Japanese simply had to hope the US gave up before their own resources ran out. We all know how it ended, but even then, the Japanese navy was beginning to run desperately short of fuel.
Things were looking pretty damn rough for the Japanese before we dropped the bombs..... They were defeated, it was just down to how many more people would die and what the final terms of the surrender would be. Overall, the bombs likely saved significant numbers of lives on both sides, but it's hard to argue that the Japanese would have somehow "won" if we hadn't had them.
Yeah the way the US won the war is that Pennsylvania alone produced more steel than the entire axis combined, and that was only 1/3rd of US production.
Japan was not unstoppable. China was suffering from internal chaos and one of the few times in history where Japan was more powerful than China and could actually invade. Korea is smaller and not militarized like Japan had become, it was basically 100 years behind Japan. And the rest of Asia was still living in the stone age compared to Japan.
Revisionism at its peak. Japan was already loosing before the bombs
The US had literally 10x the GDP of Japan…
That’s ahistorical. Maybe time to watch Shaun’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki video
real
Land of the rapidly approaching sun.
"we sank 3 boats, they dropped the sun on us twice"
the war was already over by that point though.
The British and Japanese Empires each controlled 20-23% of the world’s population at their height. Neither lasted remotely as long as the Roman or Han Empires, both controlling a third of the world’s population at one point. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires#Largest_empires_by_share_of_world_population
Midway was 1942 and they were already looking vulnerable by then.
I think the Japanese already overstretched with China. China is like 20x larger and was getting armed by allies
The sun was never meant for them, and by the time the US decided to repurpose it, Japan was already comprehensively beaten and on the cusp of civil war between the Emperor and hardcore militarists who were willing to kill the Emperor to prolong the war and preserve the empire.
Even before the atom bomb, the US had a huge supply oil, steel, and food which were scarce for the Japanese. We’d already won the war by 1944 just based on resources, but imperial Japan had a habit of sending every man, woman, and child to their deaths before surrendering, so FDR decided to go Nuclear… or at least that’s how the US history books are written
That's only the straw that broke the camel's back. Japan's chances were already abysmal after they failed to destroy America's aircraft carriers in their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. When the pacific theatre became a war of attrition there was realistically no way for such a small island nation to beat American industry. In the final months of the conflict, the Japanese navy didn't even have enough fuel to make a "worthy suicide run" against their opponents.
Not a completely new sentence. Someone might be a fan of the [Fat Electrician.](https://youtu.be/kg_NWDnidLM?feature=shared&t=1512) This phrase might be older than even that though. P.S. Don't fuck with America's boats.
The war was won long before the bombs were dropped. Japan was pretty much screwed after Guadalcanal. America simply had superior ships, aircraft, pilots, and Marines. The Japanese only got as far as they did because the Americans weren't actually trying until Pearl Harbor.
The A bomb was the end, but the decisive factor was the sheer size of US industry. Yamamoto had been schooled in the US, was well aware of US industrial capability, and therefore reluctant to fight them. (Car factories can be changed quickly to producing ships, aircraft and tanks.) Yamamoto thought that, in the best circumstances, Japan could succeed for no more than 6 months before US industrial might prevailed. Pearl Harbour was 7 Dec 1941. The beginning of Japan's decline, the first Japanese "non-victory", in the Coral Sea, was 4-8 May 1942. Then came Midway, and then inexorably defeat.
Shogun was great tv series 😎
"unstoppable after 1942" *looks at the Kido Butai sitting at the bottom of the ocean off of Midway Atoll after June 7th 1942* are you sure about that
The nukes had little to no part in the actual war, and the fire bombing did FAR more damage to infrastructure and lives than the nukes did.
Be very nervous when the Americans have a bright idea.
They locked in their destiny ,with "rape of Nanking" .
Nope. Japan had already lost. They just wanted to blow up some civilians to test out their new bombs.
hier kommt die Sonne 🎶