I was watching WW II in the Pacific this morning. The show began with the taking of Manila and went on to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Raised question in my mind. The show discussed at length the Japanese refusal to surrender. Question is......Were formal surrender terms ever offered to the Japanese at these or other battles or was it just assumed by the American command that they were going to fight the Japanese to the point of annihilation at each battle. The question is asked only for information, not to question the decisions of the American command.

I think it was a given after Guadalcanal that the Japanese would not surrender. They always fought to the death or had very very few live to surrender. Suicide was preferable.

CalebMcCreary06 said:

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I think it was a given after Guadalcanal that the Japanese would not surrender. They always fought to the death or had very very few live to surrender. Suicide was preferable.

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That jives with what I've always believed, but the question remains.....Were formal surrender terms ever offered to the various Japanese commanders?

aggiejim70 said:

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CalebMcCreary06 said:

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I think it was a given after Guadalcanal that the Japanese would not surrender. They always fought to the death or had very very few live to surrender. Suicide was preferable.

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That jives with what I've always believed, but the question remains.....Were formal surrender terms ever offered to the various Japanese commanders?

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It is my understanding that at the start of each island campaign , once it was obvious which target we were fixing to invade, the Navy would send , in the clear and in japanese a demand of surrender which was never answered nor was an answer ever expected.
During many battles we also used loudspeakers and Nisei to try and convince the japs to surrender. A few did but most of the time they used fake surrendering individuals as a trap to simply kill more Americans.
My dad said that by 45 in the Philippines they never been bothered and shot ALL japs on sight regardless of what condition they were in or what they were doing. They were not a civilized opponent.

As best as I can remember (and that might be a problem) the first offer was via the Potsdam Declaration and that got no traction with the Japs until after we dropped the atomic bombs.

My memory is that by the end of the war (after Peleliu/Iwo Jima), attempts would be made (via loud-speaker, etc.) to get entrenched Japanese troops to surrender. The Japanese norm of refusing to surrender typically led to use of fairly abrupt methods to reduce their defensive positions. Example: we often collapsed cave-system entrances with defenders still inside; or pumped fuel into those complexes and ignited it.

By that point in the war, commanders justifiably felt that obtaining the surrender of a tiny fraction of the Japanese defenders, was not worth putting US troops at risk.

A group of Jap officers tried to take control of Japan and continue the war - and almost succeeded !

DogCo84 said:

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My memory is that by the end of the war (after Peleliu/Iwo Jima), attempts would be made (via loud-speaker, etc.) to get entrenched Japanese troops to surrender. The Japanese norm of refusing to surrender typically led to use of fairly abrupt methods to reduce their defensive positions. Example: we often collapsed cave-system entrances with defenders still inside; or pumped fuel into those complexes and ignited it.

By that point in the war, commanders justifiably felt that obtaining the surrender of a tiny fraction of the Japanese defenders, was not worth putting US troops at risk.

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This happened at Marpi Point on Saipan in July (I think it was), 1944. My dad witnessed some of it. Not only did they ignore the loudspeaker messages and jump off the cliffs (entire families in some cases) several waded into the water to drown themselves.