The Blockade of Japan

Abstract

The closing months of World War II in the Pacific have been researched by countless historians, but no definitive account has been written nor is one likely to be. There is a dearth of primary evidence that can point to specific important facts about the end of the war. Most of the controversy of history revolves around the atomic bombs and the way the United States and Japan ended the war. Critics of the atomic bomb and its use often write about the alternatives to the bomb, including: Invasion, blockade, bombardment, modification of unconditional surrender terms, or some combination of these. Historians of the traditional view often use the prospect of massive losses of life that would result from an invasion as justification for the devastation of the atomic bombs. In this paper I will focus on the naval components of the blockade of the Japanese Home Islands. In the first section I will outline the history of the development of these naval tactics. In the second section I will shift to the specifics of the blockade of Japan and how it affected Japanese prospects for victory. In the third section I will discuss the prospect of blockade tactics for ending World War II in the Pacific. In the final section I will discuss possible and probable results of these tactics had the war continued. In the following sections I will show how the blockade strategy has evolved over time and how it was used in the Pacific in Japan. I will show that, if the blockade was employed to bring the Japanese to unconditional surrender, tens of millions of Japanese would likely have died of starvation and starvation related causes. If this had happened, the historical controversy surrounding the end of the war in the Pacific would have been much different The first exposure that AMerians had to naval blockade tactics occurred before the United States existed. During the revolutionary war the British used blockade and commerce attacks to try to stop the supply of goods coming into the colonies. At this time these tactics had very interesting international rules attached to them. One of these rules was that if a belligerent state was blockading another state these states were in fact at war with each other. This at war status allowed neutral states certain rights of commerce despite the blockade. Even if the port was guarded, ships from neutral states wanting to trade in non-war related goods could do so. During the Napoleonic Wars prior to the War of 1812 the United States itself had insisted on another international rule, effectivenessThis rule stated that in order for a blockade to be legal it had to also be enforced. This insistence would later be regretted by the Union during the civil war. Great Britain again blockaded the U.S. during the War of 1812. As stated above Great Britain not only had to announce a blockade, they also had to send ships required to block American ports. By 1813 the blockade went from New York to New Orleans. In 1814 it was total and cut merchant traffic to 11% of 1811 numbers.