Operation downfall considerations fail

[lionhead]

I've been reading a lot about operation downfall and i found some pretty scary stuff concerning what the American where considdering and planning of doing. But not only that, also what the Japanese where planning and considdering on doing.

That combined freaked me out a little bit and i have a few questions about it. I wrote this topic in shock so please try to hold back the nitpicking.

Imagining the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki wouldn't have resulted in the surrender of Japan and they would have gone through with both Olympic and Coronet, the resulting campaign would have changed the war, even though it was nearing its end.

What freaked me out most about the American planning is that they where considdering of using nuclear weapons for a tactical purposed(noyl if the first 2 atomic bombs actually worked of course). They would have about 15 nukes ready by August 1945. Thats scary enough. What scares me more is that they advised American troops not to enter a nuked site for "at least 48 hours". That would mean a death sentence for thousands of American troops.

Imagining they had gone through with it and had to use 4, maybe 5 bombs before the Japanese surrendered what would the reaction of the American people, but also from the rest of the world be when it became clear now thousands of Amercian soldier where exposed to immense doses of radiation and will die between hours, days, weeks or months after? What would be the future of nuclear weapons be then? What would the future of war be after such a terrible blunderous end too WWII? I can see disgust, fear, anger.

thanks in advance for any answers to those questions.

What freaked me out most about the Japanese though was that the way i see it they where ready to sacrifice everybody, everybody for the cause... I mean, not just the roughly 10.000 military planes all changed into kamikaze planes but also ready to give every man aged 15-60 and woman 17-40 a pointed stick and charge them against American forces. and they would do it too i recon. Can you imagine the fatality rate of the invasion would be then?

William Shockley estimated the fatalities of this campaign the best i think with 1.7-4 million american casualties(800.000 fatalities) and 5-10 million Japanese fatalities(military, including civilians forced to fight).
Wouldn't you all agree the fatality rate of Japanese civilians would be maybe between 70 and 80 percent on Kyushu and certainly hundreds of thousands more on the main island Honshu? I do that by looking at Okinawa where civilians would actually throw themselves and their families off cliffs to avoid capture. Of course with nukes being used the fatality rate would just go up and up, i don't think the Holocaust can come close to it. i would almost put this in the ASB section and imagine some sort of Hellmouth opening up and Satan rising.

Would there be an end too American advance once the result of radiation exposure becomes clear, when thousands of civilians lay dead and there is no stopping them from killing themselves untill there is nobody left? Would they just stop and look around and be just sad for them? I don't want to sound like a hippie but there has to be an limit for human compassion.

how high do you all think the casualties in Japan would be?

How far do you think the fighting in Japan itself would have gone?

Also, in what way would that change life in Japan? With all that nuclear devastation would there even be life in Japan?

thanks in advance

 

[KyleB]

First, the Japanese were not only training everyone 15-50 years old to fight, they converted schools into "military bases" where kids were trained to put on explosive backpacks and jump under enemy tanks.

The devastation depends upon when the Japanese finally surrender. Obviously, many Japanese would simply get tired of war and push for capitulation. But you have to remember that the government had a total grip on society. I think that a coup by moderates in 1946 is likely in such a situation. Whether or not it will succeed is up for grabs.

In both Japan and America, the public was trained to regard the other race as less than human. They were thousands of miles apart and American civilians wouldn't really know exactly what was going on. Considering the West's rather indifferent reaction to the mass-bombings of Germany and Japan, I am doubtful that many would seriously protest the destruction of Japan.

 

[Henriksson]

In Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing The Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan discusses in the chapter Roads Not Taken what would've happened had not the USSR entered the war. The gist is that the two bombs would in all probability not prompt the Japanese to surrender, if they still had the hope that Moscow could mediate the peace. The bombs did not significantly change Japan's policy, though it did instill some urgency in the peace party.

He says that "it is possible to argue, though impossible to prove" whether the Japanese military would still have argued for the continuation of the war after a third or even a fourth atomic bomb.

I guess the way for Joe Stalin to screw both Japan and the US over would be to simply not go to war with Japan...

 

[lionhead]

He says that "it is possible to argue, though impossible to prove" whether the Japanese military would still have argued for the continuation of the war after a third or even a fourth atomic bomb.

But they where gonna use the next bombs for tactical purpose, not strategical. They would only be deployed after the invasion(or part of the invasion). How far would the Japanese go after a nuclear invasion just landed on Kyushu?

 

[CalBear]

The trend was running heavy against Invasion by late July. If the typhoon still hits the Okinawa region assembly areas as IOTL that would sent back any invasion until January. In that case it is remarkably likely that no invasion occurs.

The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific) found that the Japanese were likely to have surrendered even without the Soviet declaration of war OR the A Bomb (which, considering it was an AAF study, is interesting) by the end of 1945 simply from the ongoing effects of the firebombing campaign (the 8th AF was just about ready to go active off of Okinawa when the war ended, which would have at least doubled the number of B-29s hitting the Islands, and flying from Okinawa the bombers would have been able to hit targets (and lay mines) up to Hokkaido) and the naval/submarine blockade.

The Japanese were teetering on the edge of starvation. By Spring of '46 the famine would have begun causing signifigant deaths.

 

[Abgrund]

Modern Japan would not exist. After multiple nukings and the carnage of invasion, it would be divided up into occupation zones like Germany was - American, Russian, Chinese, possibly British.

Little was known about the effects of radiation in 1945, but visiting ground zero of an atomic detonation after 48 hours would not necessarily be fatal in any case. Crossing the area quickly might have no more effect than an increase in cancers, and breathing masks would reduce this considerably. A lot would depend on the type of burst (air or ground) and the amount of dust raised by the soldiers. I would guess that the effects on American soldiers would be covered up, in the same way that those from Agent Orange were. Unless some idiot actually stationed troops in the crater.

 

[Cook]

What freaked me out most about the American planning is that they where considdering of using nuclear weapons for a tactical purposed(noyl if the first 2 atomic bombs actually worked of course). They would have about 15 nukes ready by August 1945. Thats scary enough. What scares me more is that they advised American troops not to enter a nuked site for "at least 48 hours". That would mean a death sentence for thousands of American troops.

I’m not sure what you mean here; are you saying you think the Japanese forces would have reoccupied the bombed position given that amount of time?

 

[Life In Black]

I’m not sure what you mean here; are you saying you think the Japanese forces would have reoccupied the bombed position given that amount of time?

I think he's talking about radiation poisoning.

 

[Cook]

I think he's talking about radiation poisoning.

Okay. In that case it is worth noting that during the post war Atomic Tests, American troops were trained to advance and hold ground and to do so from a start point only a few miles from ‘ground zero’ and to start their advance within minutes of the bomb going off.

 

[Elfwine]

Okay. In that case it is worth noting that during the post war Atomic Tests, American troops were trained to advance and hold ground and to do so from a start point only a few miles from ‘ground zero’ and to start their advance within minutes of the bomb going off.

Wow.

 

[Cook]

Exercise Desert Rock, Nevada 1951.

 

[Elfwine]

How did they think this was a good idea?

 

[Ryan the Rebel]

How did they think this was a good idea?

Never underestimate America's ability to do the completely and insanely retarded thing .God had to compensate for our awesomeness by making us do the worst possible thing. There's no middle ground between Einstein genius and pile-of-dirt stupid here....

Anyways, I think the American leaders, except for maybe MacArthur, would have gone with plan C (after the A-bomb and invasion) and just bombed and blockaded Japan into starvation. And once there's no city/town in Japan worth the bombs to destroy it, I'm sure napalm and white phosphorous would prove good at burning rice fields. Even if it takes a much longer time to make Japan surrender, there are minimal American casualties and given the public's reaction (unanimous cheers and applause) to destroying German and Japanese cities, the U.S. has a much longer time it can just sit there and bomb Japan.

 

[Elfwine]

I've read (in an argument on what would happen if the a-bombs weren't used so the war stretched on until the Japanese gave up - or if they would, but anyway0 that the Japanese intended to kill Allied POWs in September or so, but I can't recall where that was from.

Seems like a stupid thing to do - yes on one hand it frees up guards and rations, on the other hand its not as if the Allies need any more reasons to obliterate Japan.

 

[MattII]

Yeah, it would have been bad, especially since the Americans, initially, weren't expecting the Japs to have more than 2,500 aircraft (later revised to over 10,000) and about 350,000 troops (later revised up to 545,000, then 600,000). In reality the numbers were more like 10,000 aircraft and 900,000 troops. The kamikaze pilots were also trained to attack the transports rather than the warships, and would have a much shorter distance to fly than they had at Okinawa, which would probably have meant much bigger loses of troops.

Bypassing Olympus and going straight on with Coronet would allow you to bypass most of those forces, but would see you facing off against more than 2000 Shin'yō suicide boats, and would separate you from any sort of major bomber support.

 

[Cook]

Bypassing Olympus and going straight on with Coronet would allow you to bypass most of those forces...

Olympic was necessary to provide air bases for close air support for Coronet. Kyushu was within range of tactical air support aircraft based in Okinawa, Honshu wasn’t.

 

[mowque]

How did they think this was a good idea?

They didn't know.

 

[MattII]

Olympic was necessary to provide air bases for close air support for Coronet. Kyushu was within range of tactical air support aircraft based in Okinawa, Honshu wasn’t.

Yeah, but the bombers are a couple of hours away, unless you work it so that there are always some bombers over the target, which wouldn't be hard, but once they're expended...

And B-29s are called "strategic bombers" for a reason.

 

[Intosh]

What freaked me out most about the Japanese though was that the way i see it they where ready to sacrifice everybody, everybody for the cause... I mean, not just the roughly 10.000 military planes all changed into kamikaze planes

In OTL, around 4 000 kamikaze were used against the Allies, the losses were heavy but in was 1945 and the Americans began to forget how big were the losses for the US Navy from 1942-1943.

The Japanese will quickly lacked modern planes and trained pilots...

And the Americans will adapt their tactics, used waves of fighters, bomb to oblivion every japanese airbases, and put the armored decks of the Royal Navy CV on the first lines.

I read the Saburo Sakai book, he criticized kamikaze tactics because after severals and massives attacks, the surprise and the fear effect were lost.

but also ready to give every man aged 15-60 and woman 17-40 a pointed stick and charge them against American forces. and they would do it too i recon. Can you imagine the fatality rate of the invasion would be then?

These civilians will be machine-gunned without remorses, all japaneses villages will be destroyed, all japanese towns will be burned to the ground. Once you think the ennemy is just an animal, nothing will stop the destructions and the slaughters... And awful weapons as napalm and maybe toxic gasses will be used...

But I don't think the Japanese civilians will fight with pointed sticks, on Okinawa, the Americans used a heavy propaganda to try to save civilians lifes from mass suicides, and often they were successfull, with the help of Japanese-Americans and japanese POW's who were very cooperative once captured...

And the Japaneses civilians will not commited Resistance type actions behind the lines, once nourished and well treated by Americans soldiers, they will realized their government propaganda was only lies about the Americans being barbarians, rapers and killers. Funny, but the japanese propaganda depicted americans soldiers as really the japanese soldiers were : murderers and rapers...

The worst for Japan will a siege and a complete blockade of Japan with the complete destruction of japanese infrastructure, after one year, millions if not tens of millions will died of famine.

 

[phil5775]

The most sensible plan would have been for the US to invade Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four main Japanese islands. It was less fortified than the other three, as well as less populated; the Japanese were not expecting an assault there; and it was in a strategic location, in between Soviet territory and the main homeland island of Honshu.

Of course, that would have meant a complete overhaul of American planning, as well as diverting all military resources to another launching point (possibly Alaska). But an assault and occupation of one of the home islands would have been as big a shock to the Japanese high command as the atomic bombings or the Manchurian invasion.