Allied invasion of Japan?

[Roedecker]

As some of fellow students of history may know, during World War II the Allies planned an invasion of Japan before the retaliatory strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was called Operation Downfall and would have consisted of two separate operations, Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Olympic would have been the invasion of Kyushu to provide a large base for naval and air forces within range of Tokyo in November of 1945 and Coronet would have been the invasion of central Honshu near Tokyo in the spring of 1946.

Wikipedia has info about the planned operation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

My question for this thread is how do you guys think the things would have turned out had we not used the atomic bombs? What would the casualties have been like? What would have the aftermath have been after the war ended? How would it have effected the future of Japan?

 

[Nicole]

I suppose the Soviets joining the invasion is likely...

 

[The Mists Of Time]

casualties would have been extreme on both sides

Had there been a major ground assault on the Japanese home island I'm sure the casualties on both sides would have been extreme. I have seen estimates that say it would have been in the millions. I don't know if it would have been that high but it would have been much much higher and would have included huge numbers of Japanese civilians. It would probably have been combined with massive bombing raids on Japan much like those on Germany which would have laid waste to much of Japan.

Ironic as it may seem, there may be a lot of truth to the saying that for all those killed when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, by ending the war, those atomic bombs probably saved far more than they killed. It saved countless troops on both sides and a very large number of Japanese civilians.

In conventional warfare I think the Japanese would have fought on to the bloody end till there was no one left to fight. So you can see the bloodbath that would have made of a major ground assault on the Japanese home island, casualties by both Japanese and Allied soldiers, and a huge huge number of Japanese civilians, plus the physical destruction it would have brought to Japan.

As horrible as the atomic bombs were that we dropped on Japan, by ending the Second World War they probably really did save far more lives then they took.

 

[Ward]

I under stand that all the Purple Hearts given out from Augst 1945 to now were ordered just for Operation Olympic .

 

[BrianP]

The Soviets no doubt would want a piece of the action, and probably would have led to a divided Japan like Korea and Vietnam, with perhaps Tokyo divided too like Berlin.

When I did a paper on this topic in school, I got from several sources that the invasion would have taken the war well into 1946, if not even early 1947. Sources also cited one million American casualties (not all Alllies - just Americans) for the operations.

Plus. Japan would have been completely destroyed and we may not have a lot of the cool gadgets that we do have today.

 

[The Mists Of Time]

Plus. Japan would have been completely destroyed and we may not have a lot of the cool gadgets that we do have today.

Oh I'm sure someone would be making all those cool gadgets, if not Japan then someone else. It might be interesting to know who it would be. Who knows, it might even be the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The leading Asian, if you can call them Asian, economic powers might be Australia and New Zealand.

I'll stop there, this is kind of starting to get away from the subject of this thread.

 

[Roedecker]

...when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, by ending the war, those atomic bombs probably saved far more than they killed. It saved countless troops on both sides and a very large number of Japanese civilians...by ending the Second World War they probably really did save far more lives then they took.

That's absolutely true.

 

[Fenwick]

Japan would have been a hard fight.

The Japanese plan for defeating the invasion was called Ketsu-Go, "Decisive Operation". While Japan no longer had a realistic prospect of winning the war, it could perhaps raise the cost of conquering Japan too high for the Allies to accept, leading to some sort of armistice.

First the close to 10,000 planes would be used in Kamikaze fashion, the pilots being trained to attack transports over carriers and Destroyers. Seeing how one out of nine pilots attempting this move hit something it could make piles of bodies before Americans hit the beaches.

Add to this 75 plus submarines for actions against shipping, but the main thought was to attack carriers, and transports to hinder any land war.

The islands had close to a million men stationed ( I think 60 divisions but 40 equiped ones). They also decided against defending the beaches. Instead they let the enemy come and fight them from easily defendable areas.

 

[DominusNovus]

Alright, as a staunch supporter of the decision to nuke Japan, we have to look at the fact that a major reason for dropping them was to ensure that Russia didn't stick her nose where it didn't belong. And in retrospect, a Japanese surrender was likely in the coming weeks or months anyway. Hell, we likely could have had it prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki if we just budged a little on the unconditional surrender bit and let them keep their Emperor (which we allowed anyway, without giving up the right to have removed him).

A few more firebombing raids would likely do the trick, but might take longer. If the US wanted to avoid massive casualties, it would simply be a matter of blockading the island and bombing it to the stone age for awhile before invading. Sure, the survivors might hate us, but hate by itself isn't all that good at defeating an invading army.

Here's an interesting possibility thats not really what roe's looking for: What if the nuclear bombing was delayed long enough that it occured during operation Olympic?

 

[Max Sinister]

I once read that the Japanese had a plan to kill all prisoners of war if the Allies shouls invade the big islands. Don't know whether that's true or whether they'd really do it if the plan existed, though.

So or so, I expect that the Japanese would fight fanatically, with even more kamikaze attacks and so on. It would be a nightmare.

 

[bill_bruno]

Japanese surrender

Alright, as a staunch supporter of the decision to nuke Japan, we have to look at the fact that a major reason for dropping them was to ensure that Russia didn't stick her nose where it didn't belong. And in retrospect, a Japanese surrender was likely in the coming weeks or months anyway. Hell, we likely could have had it prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki if we just budged a little on the unconditional surrender bit and let them keep their Emperor (which we allowed anyway, without giving up the right to have removed him).

A few more firebombing raids would likely do the trick, but might take longer. If the US wanted to avoid massive casualties, it would simply be a matter of blockading the island and bombing it to the stone age for awhile before invading. Sure, the survivors might hate us, but hate by itself isn't all that good at defeating an invading army.

Here's an interesting possibility thats not really what roe's looking for: What if the nuclear bombing was delayed long enough that it occured during operation Olympic?

Actually, the Japanese wanted more than just the retention of the Emperor. Their goal, pre-bomb, was a merely token occupation of the Home Island, self-disarmament, retention of some of their nearer conquests and continuation of the same militaristic regime that started the whole thing by invading China.

 

[Iñaki]

A terrific thing that probably would happen if Operation Olympic had began is the theme about the bacteriological and chemical weapons.

Japan had the infamous 731 Unit and its experiments with bacteriological weapons (in fact general Ishii planned to use these weapons during the battle of Okinawa but at the end his offer was refused by the Japanese High Command), it could be very probable that in the case of an invasion of Home islands the japanese had decided to attempt to use these weapons against the american troops.

So Operation Olympic had been literally a hell on the earth for the japanese and the american troops.

 

[PMN1]

This is something I have posted on a current affairs board I am on quite a few times when the toppic comes up....



Use of the atom bomb probably did have a political aspect to it, Truman was less taken in by Stalin than Roosevelt but if it hadn’t been the atom bomb then Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their population would have been reduced to ash by the firebombing raids that were doing just that at the rate of one a week to try to force the surrender or starvation as a result of submarine blockade.

When the Americans invaded Saipan, 22,000 of the Japanese civilian population died in the fighting, committed suicide or were murdered by Japanese troops to stop them falling into the hands of the Americans and this was on territory that wasn’t even theirs let alone their sacred homeland.

If an invasion of the Japanese mainland had been necessary the casualties would have been horrendous – even if you don’t give a dam about the allied troops who would have been killed then think about this – during the American invasion of Okinawa, 10% - 30% (depending on where you read it) of the Japanese population died in the fighting between Japanese and American forces, the population of mainland Japan at the time was around 70 million – I’ll let you do the maths.

Even after the two bombs were dropped there were those in the Japanese military who wanted to fight to the death and tried disrupting the Emperor's surrender speech.[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
If you have spent 4 years and god knows how many billions of dollars to develop a weapon that could end the war and you don’t use it, how are you going to explain it to the families of all those who died in the extra duration of the war ---- hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of Japanese civilians and military personnel (and their descendents), tens of thousands of British, American, Australian and New Zealand military personnel (and their descendents), several thousand British, Australian, New Zealand, American and Dutch nationals (and their descendents) in internment camps and what I have found a lot of people who are against the use of the bomb have forgotten, hundreds of thousands of Chinese, Korean, Philippine, Burmese, Malay, Indonesian and Singaporean civilians (and their descendents) in occupied territory who would have had to endure many more months of aggressive Japanese occupation.[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
As for days/weeks away from surrender, when they did eventually surrender, they had over a million men under arms on the Home Islands, over 5,000 kamikaze aircraft plus at least the same for conventional attacks - that’s a lot of potential dead allied forces with continued fighting.

Something else that may have been in the US planners minds, the Japanese had already used balloon bombs on the US but their small incendiary and anti personnel devices didn’t do much than burn some areas of forest (killing 5 people in the process). The small payload however would have been ideal for some of the nasties coming out of Unit 731 in Manchuria (even if they didn’t have full knowledge of what was going on here they would have known that Japan had used bioweapons in China.

 

[Tom_B]

Alright, as a staunch supporter of the decision to nuke Japan, we have to look at the fact that a major reason for dropping them was to ensure that Russia didn't stick her nose where it didn't belong. And in retrospect, a Japanese surrender was likely in the coming weeks or months anyway. Hell, we likely could have had it prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki if we just budged a little on the unconditional surrender bit and let them keep their Emperor (which we allowed anyway, without giving up the right to have removed him).

A few more firebombing raids would likely do the trick, but might take longer. If the US wanted to avoid massive casualties, it would simply be a matter of blockading the island and bombing it to the stone age for awhile before invading. Sure, the survivors might hate us, but hate by itself isn't all that good at defeating an invading army.

Here's an interesting possibility thats not really what roe's looking for: What if the nuclear bombing was delayed long enough that it occured during operation Olympic?

This is pretty much my take on the situation as well. Curtis LeMay (not exactly a bleeding heart) opposed the use of the A Bomb because it would best be kept secret until a large stockpile was constructeed and Japan would've come to terms without an invasion anyway.

As for other unconventional weapons the plans for Olympic included massive use of cyanide gas to clear the beaches because 1] captured Japanese masks did not filter it while US masks did 2] it is very nonpersistent unlike blister agents.

 

[stevep]

Invasion of japan

Depending on how long before the Japanese actually surrendered - and in that would mean anything in the chaos of an invasion, it could have been totally disastrous for just about everyone involved. Have heard reports of the Japanese trying to organise armies of millions of civilians armed with little more than bamboo spears. They had plans for a massive kamikaze strike, which given it would have been launched directly on the landings in the main island would have been a lot more destructive. [Instead of a long overseas flight like for Okinawa say where they are easy targets for US a/c and picked up on radar they would be coming in from the radar shadow of the Mts. so a lot more would have got through]. Doubt if it would have stopped the invasion but could have increased the US casualties a lot, both directly and by disrupting the attack leading to higher casualties for those who do make it ashore. Possibly the nastiest possibility. Read in a recent scenario that if Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not persuaded the Japanese to surrender the US was planning to stockpile its nucs as they were produced. Then use them, on the invasion beaches immediately prior to the attack to destroy defences and opposing forces. Of course at the time we didn't know about fallout to any degree but the idea of an invasion into a series of ground burst nuclear strikes.

I suspect that the Japanese would have surrender fairly quickly even without the atomic attacks but we will never know for sure and if they hadn't things would have been a lot lot worse!

Steve

 

[NapoleonXIV]

All of your scenarios for a protracted Japanese resistance founder on one thing, the character of the Emperor.

The Emperor had been ambiguous about starting the war with America. He readily agreed to surrender when the majority of his advisors said to, despite the fact that he knew he risked his life (or at least his freedom) in so doing. Immediately after the surrender he offered himself for hanging to MacArthur, who refused.

The attempted coup by the war party never had any real support. Had the Emperor been overthrown and/or 'retired' to be replaced by a successor (the standard way the Japanese 'real' governments deal with recalcitrant Emperors) it is very unlikely that he would have had the support necessary to make the Japanese people fight bitterly to the end.

 

[blysas]

If we forece the old emperor to fight to the end without no atom bomb, we would end up with a slow like ivasion, lasting months if not years, deathtoll for Aremican troops and ocupation.

Aremican and allies:2.5 million.
Japanese:7.8 million

 

[Earling]

Where the hell are people getting these rediculously high numbers from? The million figure was likely a defensive number, incase things turned out for the worst. Given about three hundred thousand US soldiers were killed in action for the duration of the war, and about this number again wounded calculations of a million casulties seem to be towards the excessive. Thats something like all casualties from WW2 and then 50% again.

Certainly 2.5 million allied dead borders on the insane. Thats close to 350% higher than all the people killed in action of the USA and the UK combined.

Fighting on the beaches shall be tough, but kamikaze strikes are highly unlikely to turn it into a failure. If the Japanese arm all their civilians with sticks then they shall be mown down like cattle for relatively few allied losses.
The Japanese were all largely starving, their cities were bombed out ruins by bombers who were for all intents and purposes unopposed. The home islands were blockaded from each other and so can offer each other no support. In six months any opposition shall be nonexistant as any militia has turned into an unruly mob trying to desperately find food. How on earth can the Japanese inflict more damage on the allies than Nazi Germany, who atleast up to the end had some form of working industry/infrastructure and technology which was atleast up to scratch? Almost every nation in the world says they shall fight to the death, doesn't the actions after the A-bomb demonstrate that there were not that many in Japan who seriously wished to do so?

If the US gets into a race with the Soviets and starts having to throw soldiers with stalinstic contempt for superior firepower to claim cities for whatever the eventual line shall be in Japan, then yes casualties may well mount up quickly. However given the lack of major landing craft/supporting craft any Soviet invasion of the home isles is likely to be fairly poor if attempted at all. From the USSR's perspective, ensuring eventual domination of China looks a far more realistic aim.

 

[Hendryk]

I'm a little disturbed by the consensus on this forum about the fact that the nuclear bombings of Japan were necessary to bring it to surrender and that, without it, the alternative would have been an insanely costly invasion of the archipelago. As I said in the thread AH challenge: Japan gives up first, there are reasons to think that the Japanese leadership was in fact looking for a way out of the war, but that they naively expected the Soviet Union to be a reliable middleman who would relay their overtures to the US. I think this possibility shouldn't be dismissed out of hand just because Operation Olympic is a wargamer's wet dream.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Well, you said it... The USSR was interested... The bombs were not for the japaneses in fact first - or also - but for the USSR leader... A way to say 'don't come this way.'.