why did the japanese continue to fight during ww 2 when they were completely outmatched?

Answer 1

For the same reasons as Iraqis today.

Answer 2

A lot of it had to do with "saving face," sort of death before dishonor, and called for fighting to the last man, which included not only soldiers, but also the civilian populace, man, woman and child, It's the very thing that would have made it all the more costly, in terms of casualties, had an invasion of the home island been undertaken, and the Japanese military leaders new it. On the hand, though, there were other leaders in Japan who advocated surrender while there was still something of the country to salvage, but were overridden by the argument that, with such defences as those stated above, any attempt to take the country by force would become so bloody that the alies would soon give up and offer acceptable terms. It took dropping two atomic bombs to convence the hawks that their country could be devistated without an invasion and persuade them to accede to the call for surrender.

Answer 3

It is true, that the Japanese were up against an enemy who had about 5 times more industrial capacity at the time, and the Japanese were already involved in a war in China. The Japanese struck the US in a surprise attack in order to restrict the American fleet's ability to blockade Japanese shipping in Japan's Pacific empire, particularly Japanese oil. Imperial Japan knew they had little hope of actually winning against the Allies, but they felt that their ambitions of a unified Pacific would definately never be realized unless they struck first and hard. The Pearl Harbor attack was incomplete, allowing the States were able to regroup and project power back into the Pacific and eventually defeat a split Japan with the help of the other Allies (particularly China and Russia on the Asian mainland, and the British Empire from Australia and Indonesia). It is theorized that even without the atomic bomb, the combined forces of the Soviet and Allied military forces would have been more than capable of an invasion of the home Japanese islands with relatively little trouble (especially after the Nazis were defeated).

Answer 4

They fought on with the hope the Americans would sue for peace rather than lose all the lives it would have taken in U.S. service men to win the island of Japan. That point of view held some logic if the Americans pushed them all the way back perhaps there could be a negotiated peace that would save Japan the humiliation of defeat and occupation. many of them really believed the Americans would not pay the price of door to door combat all across japan, They were wrong, after Pearl Harbor there could be nothing but total victory for America. Truman made the decision to drop the bombs and the Japanese truly had no choice but total surrender as vanquished as any foe had ever been.

Answer 5

Because, like the Germans, they were convinced that they could win. Once the US really got its war machine going, it was only a matter of time, but the Japanese savagely defended themselves, especially as the battle lines got closer to Japan. Okinawa was one of the bloodiest battles of the war, and ultimately that is what convinced Truman that a lot less lives would be lost by dropping the atomic bombs than would be if US forces were to invade mainland Japan, which still believed in the kamikaze storms that ravaged Kublai Khan's attempts to conquer Japan.

Answer 6

At what point are you talking about? They had a much larger and less divided military force than the US or China at the time and could have easily become the dominant group. One of the DOCUMENTED reasons the A-bombs were used was that they had such a population in Tokyo and such that the military leaders thought it would be easier to drop the bomb then send in hundreds of thousands of service men to go and probably die in a very hard if not un-winnable battle.

Answer 7

They were driven by two major factors:

1) HONOR - it was so strong in families, that to lose it would be tantamount to losing your family fortune. Death was actually seen in their culture as a means to restore honor to your family and return their name to a more acceptable status. In the military, honor was ingrained even deeper to the fighting forces. Surrender was seen as weakness and an embarrassment to family honor. That was also why the Japanese soldiers treated American P.O.W.s who had no choice but to surrender early in the war with contempt and savage cruelty (Bataan and Corregidor death matches and numerous POW encampments like Cabanatuan).

2: Propaganda feeds: high ranking officials in the military and government continued to feed propaganda to the soldiers and citizens in Japan, even during the latter half of the war when they were being beaten back. Their propaganda machine was so strong that the Japanese actually believed that American forces would never make it past Guadalcanal en route to finishing off the Imperial Forces of Japan.

Answer 8

Their culture and Bushido, the warrior's code; all pretty much precluded surrender. The Battle of Midway pretty much determined that they would not win. After we started taking back islands and bombing the home islands, and the British counterattacked through Burma they were going to lose. The troops would likely have fought until the last man, which would have resulted in major casualties for the Allies.

Answer 9

They were dedicated to the Honor of their Emperor, Hirohito whom the Japanese revered as a "living God". The Yamata Dynasty is the oldest exisiting one today. Its first Emperor was Jimmu Tenno, the grandson of Amaterasu the SUN GODDESS, who came to rule Japan on February 11, 660 BC as recorded in the Kojiki and the Nihongi. The USA made the Emperor denounce his "divinity" following the surrender of Japan.

Answer 10

They weren't. Had we no longer had nukes, we would have had to invade. We did no longer have the resources to take action. American estimates were that a million individuals would have died merely in the course of the initial invasion. the eastern almost made the alternative to save battling. It got here on the brink of a protection stress coup by utilizing the protection stress administration, who felt that, inspite of the nukes, they can make the eastern islands so extreme priced to soak up human existence, that the individuals would have a minimum of sued for a conditional resign that would have allowed them to save area of their sped up empire. They were also seeing technologies arrive from Germany, that would were presented to undergo had they no longer surrendered.

Answer 11

becuse they were totally nuts and brain washed. and they were not compleatly outmatched. man for man they were equal we just did something they did not exspect. we island hoped. we would take a island then skip the next and let them starv it out. they thought we would keep fighting them head on. becuse of there code of honor. well they didn;t know in america honor comes with victory.