This was the most recent article in MILITARY ILLUSTRATED by a fella called Mike Leigh, all about the proposed Allied invasion of Japan in 1945-46. He argues that the predicted colossal Allied casualty estimates from the invasion would've been far lower than expected due to the poor C2, logistical and equipment state of the Japanese forces, the fact that larger nos. of Japs would've surrendered as opposed to the myth of all Japanese soldiers fighting to the death- citing the 10,000 or so taken on Okinawa- and the USN's development of effective techniques since Okinawa to counter the threat posed by kamikazes. There was also 1 interesting reference to a Japanese counterattack plan to drop 2000 airborne troops on the Marianas to destroy the B29 airfields in March 1945, which might've led to the Japs actually unintentionally capturing the A-bombs being assembled on Tinian !
'The greatest battle never fought'
- Thread starter Melvin Loh
- Start date
Melvin Loh said:
Mr. Leigh is an idiot, if he is arguing that 10,000 surrendered Japanese on Okinawa means the Japanese had abandoned their "fight to the death" philosophy. He is forgetting that while those 10,000 surrendered, another 100,000 fought to the death. So approximately 10% of the defenders surrendered. If 90% of the 600,000 Japanese troops...not to mention the mobilized civilian population...defending Kyushu fight to the death, a whole lot of allied troops are going to die along with them. I just saw an interesting program about that last night. The general consensus of the historians and military people interviewed on the show was that while the figure of 1 million allied casualties often cited was greatly inflated, it would not be at all unlikely that half a million or more allied soldiers would have died, along with millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians.
For one thing, the Japanese had 8,000 kamikaze planes stored, and were planning to use them against the allied TROOP SHIPS, instead of against aircraft carriers as they did at Okinawa. Even if just 2% of those got through and destroyed their targets, as many as 100,000 allied soldiers could have been wiped out before the allied forces even landed on Japanese soil. And the defenses on Kyushu were extremely strong and would have inflicted a great many casualties among the assaulting troops.
The A-bomb was horrible, but far fewer lives were lost from that than would have been lost during an invasion of Japan.
Hey Robert, you bring up[ some good point which i must admit I fully agree with- the bomb was still necessary at the time to end the war quicker in the face of the most likely scenario of Iwo Jima and Okinawa redux over the entire Jap home islands.
BTW, the article also mentioned that there were initial CINCPAC plans to also commit French and Dutch expeditionary forces alongside the US and Cth invasion forces, which however didn't eventuate due to logistical factors. But, I did read in Andrew Mollo's MILITARY UNIFORMS OF WWII about how the RNLMC actually did have a bde training in the US to participate in Op OLYMPIC, which however wasn't used for that purpose due to the bomb, and instead were deployed to the NEI to fight the Indon nationalists post-1945.
BTW, the article also mentioned that there were initial CINCPAC plans to also commit French and Dutch expeditionary forces alongside the US and Cth invasion forces, which however didn't eventuate due to logistical factors. But, I did read in Andrew Mollo's MILITARY UNIFORMS OF WWII about how the RNLMC actually did have a bde training in the US to participate in Op OLYMPIC, which however wasn't used for that purpose due to the bomb, and instead were deployed to the NEI to fight the Indon nationalists post-1945.