DBWI: Was Operation Downfall necessary

It is well documented that Japan foguht on to the very end for their emperor. But were millions of deaths an acceptable cost of victory or was there another way?
 
OOC: Operation Downfall is way overstated in its casualty estimates. Basically, the policy makers thought every Japanese person was going to fight to the death for their emperor so millions were going to die and "thank god we nuked 'em, now shut up you stupid pacifists". However, there was very little actual support for such resistance among the Japanese, and in the US its basically good ol' racism that made and still makes everyone think that millions were going to get wiped out and every Japanese person was going to fight back (and admittedly, many Japanese leaders thought their people were going to do the same, but I think that's more of political elitism than any factual grasp of the situation). Its like the Nazi Werewolves that were supposed to turn the occupation of Germany into a quagmire; millions of Germans fighting for their fallen Fuhrer; never happened, same thing with the Japanese. In reality, I truly believe any invasion would be far, far, far tamer than people generally with maybe a thousand or so deaths max rather than the entire pacific fighting force destroyed like people like to believe.
 
Like hell it was! I know there are those whou would have said that we could have starved them out with a blockade, or something like that. Bullshit. A surrender like that would have only led to another war when they again decided that the islands weren't enough for 'em! We had to show them what for! If we hadn't, people like that "Rising Sun" terrorist group would be FAR more common. And the Japanese society is pretty milaristic now, could you imagine what it would have been like if we hadn't taught em what for!


OOC:mad: Emperor Norton, I would like to know why you think that way, because it is an interesting point of view that I haven't seen before. I do, however, disagree. If the invasion of Okinawa was any example, which I think it was, civilians would have been used as human shields, forced into the army, have their food stolen, and in some cases, commit mass sucide rather than be taken.
 
Like hell it was! I know there are those whou would have said that we could have starved them out with a blockade, or something like that. Bullshit. A surrender like that would have only led to another war when they again decided that the islands weren't enough for 'em! We had to show them what for! If we hadn't, people like that "Rising Sun" terrorist group would be FAR more common. And the Japanese society is pretty milaristic now, could you imagine what it would have been like if we hadn't taught em what for!


OOC:mad: Emperor Norton, I would like to know why you think that way, because it is an interesting point of view that I haven't seen before. I do, however, disagree. If the invasion of Okinawa was any example, which I think it was, civilians would have been used as human shields, forced into the army, have their food stolen, and in some cases, commit mass sucide rather than be taken.

I'm one of those who think firebombing would've starved the Japanese out. And the nuke - why didn't they use teh almighty nuke? I thought we had 3. We could just nuke Tokyo and wait several months. Firebombing raids were destroying all of Japan's cities.

Just typical of some higher brass to rush the effort and invade Japan altogether. I mean, starve them into surrender, then send occupational forces. The Rising Sun terrorist group was motivated by the supposed brutality of the US invasion forces (IIRC in reality it was the Japanese, begging for food then blowing themselves up, or those begging for food then dying) and the 'trial' and execution of the Emperor - would that happen if we starved them out first? Less US and Japanese casualties, right?

And we should've spared their Emperor - we nearly lost Japan to the Reds, and isn't the main motivation of the now militaristic Japanese society to emulate the Emperor's reign?

OOC : IIRC many of the civilians in Okinawa surrendered and some were forced to commit suicide by the Army. And they weren't starved.
 
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