RedAlertSteve _ .... the scale of the Battle of Okinawa was a lot larger than Iwo Jima. The percentage of American casualties got higher the closer to mainland Japan that American forces got.
I knew several Japanese colleagues who's grandparents would say the same thing (of an American Invasion). If a battle-hardened American Marine / soldier was terrified, just imagine a Japanese civilian who's entire family and way of life was at risk. That's what would've made them much more dangerous because at that point, they would have everything to lose and literally would've fought tooth and nail. It would've been a bloodbath for everyone
@@mjohnsimon1337 Grandpa was in the Army, 3rd Amored Signals Corps. He was in Europe, just knocked down the Nazis. They were gonna send them towards Japan but the ended before they transferred him over there.
I remember talking with a WWII vet who fought in the Pacific Theater. He said that he was glad the Japanese surrendered or he and countless others would have died in the invasion of Japan.
My late father-in-law, in the US Navy Atlantic Theater had just been sent to the Pacific in June, arriving at Okinawa in mid-July (just in time for a typhoon!) He would've been involved in the invasion; thank God he wasn't.
looking back on ww2, it was really just sorta a "how long can you last" when it came to battles and invasions soldiers who lived through d-day probably saw their fate on a later battle just a week after
I also talked to one, he said he was gonna be one of the first attacking Japan. He said they were being told they’d have to be ready to kill kids. He’s glad the bombs were dropped
cory Sensei Communist anime Cold War? I'm in. All JRPGs games would have Russia be evil vodka drinking bear riding non-commie anymore almost cosmonauts.
A colossal bloodbath avoided. Best scenario took place. Japan rebuilds, Russian influence halted, our grandfathers come home in 1945 instead of dying in ‘46.
A lot of people talk bad about America dropping the nukes but don’t realize how much more death would’ve occurred without them. Also, did you know the USA actually warned Japan about the nukes before we dropped them. We told them to evacuate the cities so no civilians would be killed but they didn’t so eventually we had to drop em anyway.
Legendary Monkey I just heard this, and only from one source, so I’m not taking it too seriously until I find more information to corroborate this, but I heard recently that Japan had offered to negotiate a peace treaty earlier in year, but the offer was refused because, A: The US wanted nothing less than Japan’s complete surrender, and B: The US wanted use its newly developed nuclear weapon as a demonstration of power. Using nukes to end World War II may be the only opportunity to do so in a way that still made the US look like the good guy. I don’t know if that’s someone’s theory, or if there is any truth to it. Usually, what really happened falls somewhere in between.
@@xnetpc yeah over heard about that too but I heard the USA rejected it because the Japanese wanted to keep control of all its assets of land it gained and that weren’t taken back yet. So the USA declined and asked for total surrender of all conquered lands and they also declined.
Hey everyone. Two reasons for my absence. 1) Finals suck. And going to classes and finishing papers/projects took up most of my time the last month. 2) Learning new technology. I'm trying to make this content more engaging and am learning new programs to do that. The learning curve took time but I finally 'mastered' it enough to make new videos. This video is basically the dam holding all the content back. Everything you've been waiting for (Alternate Countries, Germany Pt. 2) that'll be out in the next few weeks. I'm not taking a holiday break because I gotta make it up to you guys somehow. Thanks for the support. -Cody
@@Zawmbbeh Just being realistic. They knew conquering Japan island by island would be a long slog. We still have about 100,000 left. They just issue them in the field and let the paperwork catch up.
My Father’s best friend was in the 1st Marines. Served from Guadalcanal onward..... He was training for the Japanese invasion. After Okinawa everyone knew what it would mean, casualty wise, to invade the home islands. After the Atomic Bombs were dropped and the surrender was announced he was stunned as he had already counted himself as a future casualty. As he walked around his base he saw tough men crying like little girls. He then sat down and for the first time he began to think about going home, marriage to his G/F and having a family...
If the resistance we faced on Okinawa and Iwo Jima were a true extrapolation of what we would see with an invasion of the Home Islands, then Operation Downfall would have essentially led to the genocide of the Japanese people. The military junta wanted nothing less than to fight to the last man. They were bent on suicide on a national level.
@XZDrake There is also some thought that the junta would have over committed forces to attempting to retake the southern portion of the Southernmost island. Which by both the name of that operation and the line of furthest advance can be seen as the main point is simply to get the Japanese to relocate some of the garrison divisions from the central plains someplace out of the way. We already had plenty of air bases and could have captured some much smaller islands easier if we needed more.
I'd find it hard to believe that there wasn't a single rational person in Japan. There were many businessmen as there are today and I don't think the president of Mitsubishi would have fought to his last breath.
Exactly, the video does not bring this into the equation. The junta ruled Japan, the emperor was little more than a beloved figurehead. It was unheard of for an emporer to do what Hirohito did: he went on the radio to address the people. Up to that moment you could count on your fingers how many people had heard his voice. His address was practically a coup.
Civilians did not fight on Iwo Jima or Okinawa and would have been useless on the Main Islands. It is true, the people would have taken a beating but American losses would have been near the low estimates if not less. American leadership would not tolerate high American losses and the bombers would have hit very pebble and blade of grass.
Operation Downfall would have been very costly. I was told Japan had held back substantial amounts of their newest and best weaponry for this eventuality. Also that civilians including women and children had mandatory training to resist to the end. There might have been a knife or pointed stick around every corner.
It was well known by then the extent to which the Japanese would go in doomed, last stand defenses. Had downfall gone forward, it would have been a wrecking ball demolishing everything in its path, the only option available for the Japanese would have been suicide charges as all cover would get destroyed the moment it came into range of the big guns.
@@wtfbros5110 i mean that's what happens when you buy stuff from germany while they're in the same situation that you're pretty sure you're going to fall into as well
Read / view Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" classic book, also an HBO series. I've tried many times to read it, always had to quit because it became too horrible.
1. What if the USSR won the Afghan War? 2. What if NATO accepted the 1952 "Stalin Note"? 3. What if the Kuomintang won the Chinese Civil War? 4. What if Tsar Alexander II was not assassinated in 1881? 5. What if Brazil remained a monarchy? 6. What if the Watergate scandal never happened? 7. What if Russia won the Russo-Japanese War? 8. What if the United States joined the League of Nations? 9. What if the Ottoman Turks won the Battle of Vienna? 10. What if Austria won the Austro-Prussian War?
92axelmaster China is a huge country. I expect that to be true only for coastal regions. Even today, if you look at the GDP per capita of China's provinces, a huge discrepancy exists between coastal and inland provinces. In fact, coastal wealthy cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou are already very developed.
This is going to be buried but I think its just a fun fact. My Grandpa was with the 1st Marine Division and has initial assignment was to be apart of the invading force in Operation Downfall. Though since Japan surrendered he was sent to China to be somewhat of a police force defending the Nationalist from the Communists. (Some of my timeline may be wrong it is a story from my dead Grandpa. And family stories are often inconsistent but hey something that is fun to share)
@J M The Japanese wouldn't have surrendered as they thought it as the most dishonorable action someone could do. The entire reason they did banzai charges were because it was most honorable to go out in battle.
There's an interesting wrinkle to consider as well. Namely the Kyūjō incident; even after the bombs were dropped, a cadre of junior officers in the IJA and Imperial Guard learned of the Emperor's intent to make a radio broadcast announcing the surrender, and planned to abduct him so that the broadcast would not take place.
I love this story. It was featured on the history channel back when it didnt suck. It was called The Last Mission. What a strange story about an attempted government take over to prevent surrender that resulted in a general shot dead, all conspirators killing themselves, and the war ending anyway.
My grandfather earned two bronze stars fighting the Japanese in WW2. When asked about dropping the nuclear bombs he never wavered that it was, 'the best thing that could have happened for both sides'. The one thing this video failed to address was the fanatic japanese military AND citizenship. Every man, woman, and child would have been used in a variety of suicide attacks: detonation packs, traps, etc etc. The loss of japanese life would have been unlike anything seen before. My grandfather would have been involved in that invasion, and my whole line might not exist.
Nugget In a biscuit *dabbing emoji* Same, my grandfather fought in Northern Europe though and met my grandmother when he liberated her town in the Netherlands.
Yes the Japanese has thousands of kamikaze pilots ready to fly into the Allied navy. We lost 15,000 lives taking Okinawa, an island of 700 square miles. To take Kyushu, and island of almost 15000 square miles, would easily take a couple hundred thousand lives.
well technically the there was a third option,which was technically what we gave them post war minus the nukes,which was emperor stays on the throne,but that would've been a controversial move on the US GOV's part.
You completely ignored the point that the Soviet Union was the main motivation for Surrender. Hirohito would've almost certainly surrendered regardless through fear of the Soviets as soon as they invaded manchuria, dropping the bomb was gratuitous
You left out a very important aspect of this operation: because the US anticipated very high casualties, the military was preparing to deploy chemical weapons on Japan to help in expediting victory.
@@bg147 there was no disagreement according to my father who was slated to invade in Operation Downfall. The US Army chemical warfare units were ready to go with agents that had been taken from the Nazis. Furthermore the concept of civilians armed with spears was countered by arming the US troops with captured German machine guns. You simply sprayed the people before they could get close enough to attack.My father like many of the invading troops were combat veterans of the Pacific or brought over from the ETO. They were used to killing people and had long ago put any qualms to rest. In conclusion, the Japanese people would be overwhelmed and slaughtered before they had a chance to resist.
@@johncomstock2759 That is wild. They would have been obliterated. The US leadership never would have tolerated a million in losses. It would have been carpet bombing, starvation, flame throwers, chemicals as you stated, and anything else.
@@johncomstock2759 OR -- the Japanese could have used their own chemical weapons plus their biological weapons (tested in China) and rendered the Allied-occupied parts of Japan uninhabitable.
@@chozer1 Well you can belive what you want but Operation Downfall was designed to be a kill them all invasion. The main reason I know my father was telling me the truth was the details came out while he was preparing me for MY trip to hell in Vietnam.
Actually there was supposed to be a coup lead against Emperor Hirorito by extremist imperials. If this had succeeded, Tojo and the military leaders could've kept the war going EDIT: Correction, Tojo had nothing to do with the coup, it was solely hardliners in the Imperial Japanese Army.
Yes, one account of this is "The longest day". According to this account, the plot was spoiled due to a US air raid over the general area at the right time.
No see, Alola isn't Hawaii, it's a region based off of Hawaii, and that's why it has a different name. :) :) :) Meanwhile Kanto is a real place, so it would have the Pokemon whereas Hawaii would not. :) :) :) The US should have grabbed Alola when they had the chance. :) :) :)
My father signed up for this operation. Got him out of occupation duties in Europe. Canadian army. Got him home in time for university in September. Meanwhile my uncle who served in the Aleutian, Italy and NW Europe didn't get home till spring 1946
@@paulpaterson1661 because Britain helped so much in the Pacific theater, the US had provided Britain with almost all of it's supplies while it was being attacked by Germany, you literally would've starved if not for American lend lease, and although Britain did help in the European theatre, the help Britain and Australia provided was very little compared to the massive US force island hopping toward the Japanese homeland
Everyone loves to brainstorm what the invasion of fortress Japan would have looked like. But the truth is there was a third reason the Emperor surrendered. He had finally found out the true state of the nation. There was no food with which to continue to fight. And once the food ran out the Japanese people would quickly turn on the leadership and the emperor. The Emperors council knew they were down to mere weeks until such an event happened. Add to this that they had no remaining industrial capacity. By the time of surrender their largest and pretty much only source of metal was in scavenging shrapnel and fragments from US dropped bombs. They had no fuel. They had no ammunition. This is why Stalin was able to roll over hundreds of thousands of troops in Manchuria. For some reason the myth of the worst case scenario of operation downfall persists. But what the US found when the Japanese did surrender was a nation at the point of complete collapse. This is why the first thing the US Generals did on arriving in Japan was to call for a massive sea lift of food.
Thats a worthwhile point.The Japanese would have done just about anything for their Emperor but would have starvation brought on a rebellion?Possibly? Also the point in the video about the Russian Invasion of Japanese occupied Manchuria being much more significant than the dropping of the Atomic Bombs is also worth pondering. Like the Germans the Japanese appeared to fear the Russians much more and the thought of a Communist Japan eliminating or executing the Emperor might have been the final straw .
John Milanese What the Japanese would be willing to do for their emperor is a bit of a question. What the Army would do is one thing. Given the intense immersion into the brutal military culture. What the civilians would do is altogether different. In the weeks before the surrender an event spooked the Royal Handlers. The Emperor was returning from some inspection on function and the people were started to gather around his car. The one clearly marked with the Chrysanthemum crest. The people were not show proper respect. They were showing anger. Security quickly got him out of there, But it did make everyone nervous. The Emperor surrendered because he saw doing so as the only potential chance, of preserving the 5000 year old Imperial system in some form. He knew what the Russians did to Royalty. He saw what was fast approaching from his own people. The American’s were his best chance at keeping his head, as weird as it sounds. Even if he had to face a war crimes trial, the Imperial seat might live on. He lucked out, in that MacArthur seemed to be thinking along similar lines. (Proving our Grandfathers knew much better than we did, how to successfully manage a defeated nation and bring it peacefully into the modern world.Sadly GW Bush clearly never read any books by Marshall or MacArthur on the subject.)
@@arnaudyohmassenet Oh wow,. It appears in a number of well researched books. I think one is Downfall, The Fall of Imperial Japan, I forget the author. It's really weird, the first few weeks following the Japanese surrender are really well documented. Than there is almost nothing until the Korean War and Godzilla movies start. Just very little English Language information. But when talking about the end of WW2 and examining what was actually going on on the Japanese side, it's best to think of it as three distinct groups. The Army Leadership who controlled the Ruling Council and the Government. The "Peace Faction" which was mainly the Foreign Minister and Navy Minister (who no longer had a Navy by that point) who were trying to go Lone Wolf and start unofficial Peace Negotiations through Stalin, without Government or Emperors leave. And Finally the Emperor and the Imperial Household. Who had their own interests and agendas. The actual Japanese People were in no way represented by any of these three. Of them the Emperor probably cared the most about the people. While at the same time having a limited understanding of them. But at the same time The Emperor feared a populist Communist uprising more than anything else. And did not want Stalin and the Communists to gain a foothold in Japan. That more than anything probably led to his decision with regard to betting everything on surrendering to the Americans.
I have to disagree with you about the Russian factor outweighing the nuclear one. When he surrendered, the emperor recorded two different messages. The one played to the populace as a whole said that he was surrendering to save the people from the horrors and barbarity of the atomic bomb. The message played to the military talked about how the Soviet entry into the war meant that there was no other option. The real reason had to do with the emperor himself. The Japanese considered the emperor to be a divine being. If an atomic bomb was dropped on Tokyo, it was possible that lineage could be destroyed. That concern was reinforced by the statement under torture made by captured American pilot Marcus McDilda that atomic bombs would be dropped on Tokyo and Kyoto in the next few days. That was their main concern therefore the atomic bomb was a primary reason they surrendered. The Soviets entry was also a primary factor, but it had to do with more than simply their military, though. Although you did touch on this, I want to add some context. During the 1920s and early '30s, Japan was gripped by a series of leftist upheavals. Industrialization brought labor unions along with strikes and riots. The Japanese Communist Party formed in 1922. Anarcho-communist groups arose, such as the Black Youth League and the All-Japan Libertarian Federation of Labor Unions, both forming in 1926. The activities of these groups included murders, bombings, and other acts of terrorism, some of the more significant being the assassination of two prime ministers, Hara Takashi in 1921 and Osachi Hamaguchi in 1930 (although he survived nine months after being shot, he never fully recovered), and the attempted assassination of then Prince Regent Hirohito in 1923. During the American invasion of Luzon, Emperor Hirohito asked seven former prime ministers if he should continue the war. All counseled a continuation of the war, except one: Prince Fumimaro Konoe. He felt Japan should pursue a settlement because he feared that, if the war continued, it would result in a resurgence of the communism and anarchism that was suppressed a decade earlier. He drafted a memorandum for the emperor reiterating this a month later. After the Soviets entered the war, the greatest threat was not their military but the potential of them achieving a position where they could foment such movements in Japan. Much like the atomic bomb, this was also an existential threat to the divine lineage descended from the goddess Amaterasu. Both factors were of primary concern. The desire to preserve the imperial throne is what led to the surrender. The unconditional surrender of Japan is a myth. There was a condition: Hirohito remained on the throne, albeit without his imperial prerogatives. As for a worst case scenario if Japan had refused to surrender, you forget that the Japanese strategy at that point was Ketsu-Go. It was the kamikaze strategy that was supposed to break American resolve to continue fighting. Civilians were to be given sharpened bamboo spears with which to fight. Children were to be given explosive vests with which to take out tanks. In the opinion of Imperial Headquarters, "The only course left is for Japan's one hundred million people to sacrifice their lives by charging the enemy to make them lose the will to fight." Millions, if not tens of millions, of Japanese would have died in the invasion. The situation is even more nightmarish if the United States did have the atomic bomb and Japan still refused to surrender. There were no plans to drop any more atomic bombs after Nagasaki. America was producing around one atomic bomb a week. They intended to use them tactically to support Operation Olympic, by the launch of which, America would have had at least eight bombs stockpiled. Under those circumstances, American troops would have been invading a radioactive wasteland, and that would have increased American casualties due to radiation exposure. Also, your assertion that the entire Kwantung Army, with a strength of 713,000 men, was completely destroyed by the Soviets in a couple of weeks is fallacious. The Soviets, who invaded August 9, did catch the Japanese by surprise and in the middle of a reorganization that would have lasted into September, and they were generally successful, however, they did meet stiff, if often futile, resistance. The Japanese plan, in the event of conflict with the Soviets, was to withdraw to the southeast, into Korea. At the time when the Japanese were ordered to cease fire, August 15, they had lost about 21,000 killed, 20,000 wounded, and 41,000 prisoners. Some Japanese units ignored the cease-fire order, but it did put an end to organized resistance, the withdraw to the southeast, or any chance of coordinating with Japanese forces in China. The Soviets, who were more interested in securing territory than anything, then bypassed these pockets of resistance and continued advancing until September 2. After hostilities officially ended, the Soviets took the surrender of 600,000 Japanese soldiers. Similarly, the United States took the surrender of 4.5 million Japanese soldiers at the same time. If we are working under your premise that the Japanese refused to surrender and fought bitterly, things would not have gone quite so quickly for the Russians, especially once they started outpacing their supply lines. The Japanese had about 1,125,000 undefeated soldiers in China, who were much better equipped than the Kwantung Army. Counting their troops in Indochina and the home islands, they still had 6,095,000 troops. Since we are looking at a worst case scenario, we'll look at the worst fear of American planners. They feared taking the Japanese home islands would not end the war. The Japanese government and a significant portion of their remaining military would then transfer to the mainland and continue the war in China. That outcome might have prolonged the duration of the war for years. Still, this is better than a lot of the alternate history videos that RUclips seems so interested in recommending to me over the last few days. While I did have a few quibbles and felt you may have been missing some facts and/or context, I do feel this one was much more rational and realistic than the majority that I've seen.
The pilot was bluffing about Kyoto, but he wasn’t bluffing about Tokyo as it was later confirmed that we had one more bomb (not two which would have been an even bigger fear for the Japanese).
Also, you should have notes that the Japanese were about to conduct an operation that would have resulted in tens to hundreds of thousands of dead American civilians. The Japanese, confirmed by some Japanese submarine naval men, were about to drop bubonic plague infested fleas on San Diego.
@@howardbaxter2514 At that point in time there were effective treatments for bubonic plague both sulfa drugs and an antiplague serum. Also streptomycin was invented in 1943. The idea that plague would run wild in california was Japanese wishful thinking. Californians had dealt with plague 40 years earlier and knew about quaruntine procedures.
Curtis Shaw very well stated. I knew much but not nearly all of this, thank you. It bothers me that more people do not realize that the atomic bombings saved millions of lives. An invasion of Japan would have made America's WW2 experience *so much worse.* (And it would have been unimaginably ugly for the Japanese.)
The atomic bombs saved an estimated 1,000,000 Allied lives (mostly American) and 10,000,000 Japanese many of them civilians who would have been used in mass suicide waves And usually when the military made casualty estimates they were usually wrong and the casualties usually ended up being much higher on both sides
We printed so many purple hearts planning for the invasion we're still using them today with hundreds of thousands left. We have so many spare that in iraq and Afghanistan field commanders have stockpiles to hand them out on the spot
Or they could've accepted the conditional surrender? Seems like the only thing the US got from the unconditional one was the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, which only lead to one actual conviction.
@Max Smith They pretty much got all of that anyway from the US to protect against communist influences in Japan (look up "America's favorite war criminal"), aside from Korea & Manchukuo which they had no chance of claiming anyway with the Soviets involved.
Maybe or not. According to the book "Marching orders" by Bruce Lee about the breaking of the Japanese codes, the Japanese embassies and diplomats were constantly considering surrendering to the Russians rather than to the Americans. The reason was they thought they could get better terms from the Russians (clearly they missed the ruthlessness of the communists) than from the Americans, who were calling for "Unconditional Surrender" They didn't know what "unconditional surrender" would mean. Does it mean the murdering of the Emperor and his family? Murdering of all of the govt. leaders? Murdering of all of the military leaders-effectively all of the aristocracy? They would rather sacrifice all of the poor sucker Japanese than give up their power and possibly their lives. The protagonists of the surrender to Soviet Union camp completely missed the point of what the Soviets did to the Russian aristocracy, and to the Ukrainian people. The Emperor actually saved them by surrendering.
From what I've heard, the Emperor was pretty much put under house arrest for most of the war by his top military guys, who actually wanted the war and kept it going when they really shouldn't have, and the Emperor was only able to start trying to sue for peace after being rescued from house arrest by more loyal people. Naturally, the guys who locked up the Emperor and ignored his wishes to not fight with the US in the first place were not very popular.
Shane Sansom cody himself was also critical of the numbers and motives of the makers of those estimates. Max. casualties was over double the amount what US lost in real WW2? Clearly BS, that min. is more realistic. Estimates were most likely made by the military and its generals clearly wanted to test new technology and drop some nukes.
Kinda weird to think my grandpa who was too young to fight in ww2 might’ve had the chance to partake in the invasion of Japan if the war lasted a few years longer
One point to make. If the US had invaded Japan the Imperial Army had orders to kill all POWs. This would have infuriated the US and the Western Allies even more, probably leading to much more suppression of the Japanese Home Islands after the War. Even if the Soviets never endered Japan (Which I am not sure they would do to be honest-their interest was in Manchuria and Korea) it would have caused a massive strain in US and Japanese relations for at least 40 years after the war.
Quick correction, the Kill All Prisoners Order was given and had started to be implemented, it wasn't conditional on the invasion of Japan. I'm with Caleb Shirey in believing that if there hadn't been a successful surrender the invasion would have been a genocide due to the civilian will to resist and the nuclear bomb production pipeline. Especially since no one yet knew about the ecological problems of nuclear weapons (to be fair they produce less radiation than thermonuclear weapons so re-habitation is possible, though sending solders through the fallout as was planned would have been devastating to the babyboomers). Also the Japanese had been saving up their kamikazes for homeland defense near the end of the war.
@@Captain1nsaneo Thermonuclear weapons produce less radiation. Thermonuclear weapons are nuclear bombs with hydrogen next to it. The nuclear bomb is so hot that when it ignites the hydrogen it doesn't just explode, it actually fuses like a star, producing even more energy than the nuclear bomb. The area of destruction of a thermonuclear weapon is so large that there would be negligible radiation sickness. Anyone that could have got radiation sickness would already burn to death. With Hiroshima the nuclear bomb is small (by nuclear comparison) thus the range of burning to death is smaller than the range of suffering from radiation. A Hiroshima bomb dropped on New York would burn up a few city streets, everything inside and kill 100k+. A Russian thermonuclear bomb from a missile would wipe out the entire city.
@@malaysabolehpsy Well you've made me doubt my knowledge on the radiological characteristics of nuclear vs thermo. Time to check google. (a 23 page article later) I didn't know about the mach wave. Cool. Turns out we're both wrong on how much radiation nukes produce per kiloton. The nuclear radiation is roughly 15% of the yield for both nuclear and thermonuclear. But differences in individual bomb design will change the kind of leftover material. The area is subject to the square-cube law, a thermonuclear bomb of 1 megaton would have a larger volume but 10 100 kiloton nuclear bombs would have a larger foot print (thus MIRVs). Also weather and the shape of the land will have a large affect on contamination.
Yeah. I was sitting here asking myself that question. The Russians didn't have the logistics to attempt an amphibious landing. And the US wasn't willing to give them landing craft. The Russians would've swept SE Asia of Japanese forces. But that doesn't change much from our timeline in where the boundaries are drawn.
True true, but however terrible their naval power was, the Japanese navy was still decimated, with US forces likely not in the North, so they would still be able to take some northern Japanese islands
Even the aforementioned invasion of Manchuria depended on American ships supplying them through Vladivostok to build up supplies since the Trans Siberian railroad wasn't enough to sustain such a large army (Japan didn't attack American ships bound for USSR till USSR invaded). If the Invasion of Japanese occupied lands continued, Soviets would struggle to just feed their army much less conduct one of the largest amphibious operations in history.
Soviets had less than 600 vessels active by 1945, many were Lend Lease, a third were subs. The Reds actually invaded some small outer islands of Japan, forgot the names but half of their transports were from the Lend Lease program. So yeah itd take alteast by 1946-7 for them to build up a Navy good enough for setting foot in Japan.
if japan could hold out for a few years... and somehow magically survive a russian invasion/blockade... then ya your grandpa could'va died. thought highly unlikely seeing before the end of the war japan's government was already losing grip and could've easily been knocked over by high respecting admirals that survived. hell the emperor could've done it. it was that he was kepted in the dark for the whole war...
My great uncle was a Marine who fought in 6 of the major island hopping operations. Although he was advanced in years when I became old enough to interact with him in a meaningful way, he appeared to me to be very tough and incredible strong physically (though he walked with a pronounced limp due to the severe injury that finally ended his military career). Even as a youngster I was interested in history and in WW2 in particular. Upon learning of his enlistment, I began to gravitate towards him at family functions and visits. I loved being around him. He was generally jovial and gregarious. He never talked about the war. I so wanted to hear and learn about his life that when I was about 10 years old I managed to get myself and my brother invited to his house for the evening. Once the conversation turned to WW2 (sparked by me) the evening took a very dark turn that I can only describe as chilling. The subject came around in some way to Japan at that time, something about all the Japanese imports that Americans bought, from cars to transistor radios. His whole demeanor began to change and his face, which usually seemed cheerful, seemed to blaze with anger. I knew in no uncertain terms that he absolutely hated Japan and the Japanese people. The stories he told me about his experiences kept me up all night. The war no longer seemed adventurous and heroic. He loathed the enemy and pledged to hate the Japanese till the day he died. I can only say that the stories he told me about the behavior of the Japanese during the war made me understand where all this hate came from.... and also why he never wanted to talk about his days as a US Marine.
This is the part "average people" who want to argue about how "terrible" the US using atom bombs on Japan can never know or understand. It was DEFINITELY a different time and place! Later! OL J R :)
Japan was a different breed of enemy. Something that's often overlooked is that they were racially supremacist like the nazis and basically viewed everyone except the Japanese as being subhuman, which is why they were so cruel and savage even towards civilians in the regions that they occupied. They were signatories to the Geneva convention but this was meaningless because apparently they weren't present or something for when the actual rules were agreed upon, so Japan never abided by this. PoWs were starved, forced to work grueling labor, frequently executed, tortured, experimented on, and even often cannibalized. The exceptional savagery of the Japanese can be seen across the Pacific theater during the course of the whole war, most notably during the rape of Nanking and Unit 731, where they conducted some of the most inhumane experiments and research ever. They were fierce, relentless enemies and their crazed battlefield antics terrified the Americans. All of this combined with just old timey American racism really bred a deep hatred for the Japanese by many American soldiers for the rest of their lives.
Had Japan not surrenders, General Curtis Lemay stated he was fully prepared to drop a nuke a week until Japan either surrendered or was totally flattened.
A) This scenario takes nukes away. B) It was very much a bluff. The US was making 2 to 3 bombs per month at the time. So by the start of the invasion, the US would have about 14 to 20 bombs, assuming Project Manhattan couldn't deliver a bomb before August. If we go by the Operation Coronet date, at a rate of one nuke per week, you run out of nukes by roughly mid-May of 1946. If you go by Operation Olympic, then about mid-January of 1946. A nuke per month or two is certainly doable. Hell, three could give you about a bit over 5 months, 6, maybe even 7 months But one per week is just an exaggeration.
Cody, I feel like you're overexaggerating how willing Japan was to surrender. That initial offer to surrender was incredibly suspicious and there was absolutely no indication it would be accepted by the Japanese government/monarchy. I'd also question your view that the Soviets were the main reason for the surrender, as it isn't really one supported by mainstream historians and mostly exists as a contrarian viewpoint. Keep in mind the USSR had no real way to organise a widespread amphibious invasion within any reasonable timeframe.
+Snarky Edmonton Cyclist It's not just about having the equipment, like transports or LSTs. It's about having the knowledge and experience to use them. The US had been fighting amphibious warfare for years up to that point, and the Soviets to my knowledge had pretty much zero practical experience in amphibious warfare, or even transporting large quantities of troops and supplies over massive bodies of water. The Soviets would have been able to deal tremendous damage to Japan's holdings in China/Korea, but I doubt they could seriously have threatened the Japanese home islands.
Actually, they invaded the Southern Kuril Islands just north of Hokkaido and they could have conceivably taken Hokkaido, even if it's unlikely they would get to Tokyo before the Americans invaded or the government surrendered.
Mr.Science Dieppe was a fortnight after Operation Shoe String. The Allies already knew how to launch amphibious assaults. Dieppe just demonstrated what happens when you don't use paratroopers, heavy bombers, and battleships and heavy cruisers to give fire support, all of which were what the Canadian commander asked for, and was refused.
I would love to see this video redone with the updated information about the Soviet inability to threaten the Japanese home islands. The Soviet angle is often stressed too much considering their actual capabilities. The remains of the IJN alone was many many times more powerful than anything the USSR could put into the Pacific waters.
Especially if you consider the Russo-Japanese War just a couple decades earlier, in which Japan more or less kicked Russia's ass (though to be far, Russia was dealing with an incompetent leader at the time, and Japan would have been getting invaded by the US in the imaginary scenario, which would complicate things)
But during operation downfall, the US Navy would be attacking the Japanese navy, and likely leaving it decimated.. if not completely destroyed, allowing the Russians to use their smaller navy to easily reach Japan
actually the australians would be called the ANZACs (Australian & New Zealand Army Corps) because we like our sister (idk wether they are our sister country but hey i'd like to think it is) country New Zealand and would've teamed up with them
A 3 division Commonwealth Corps with a Canadian, Australian and British division was being organized for Coronet. The Far East Fleet was to be reinforced by up to 6 more carriers, with escorts from the RCN, RAN, and RNZN. A force of 22 heavy bomber squadrons, 10 of them the RCAF 6th Bomb Group, and a Tactical Air Force built around the RAAF was planned, too.
Imagine the guys who marched to Berlin, then getting shipped to the Pacific to invade Japan. Some of those units were already on their way. Ask them about the bombs.
Pro Football Hall of Fame DL Art Donovan was a shipboard Marine for most of the war. He was transfered off the ship to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
Good video, but there is a historical inaccuracy, Manchuria would not become a puppet regime, but handled back to the China, or most likely the People's Republic of China.
Proof? Regardless it was handed back to the Chinese nevertheless. Plus Advisors and Military Equipment (even if its Old Japanese Crap) was given and PRC remained Independent instead of Puppet like the Eastern European Nations.
@@bosunbill9059 Here's your proof. web.archive.org/web/20131219040912/oudl.osmania.ac.in/bitstream/handle/OUDL/13712/216873_Manchuria_Since_1931.pdf?sequence=2 pages 227-228. Statistics on the next few pages.
Alyosha Romanov yes, but like this video, it would be interesting to see how things play out. American controlled Mexico (due to imperialism) could definitely be a cool theory.
My grandpa had just enlisted in the army (due to age restrictions) a month before they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He would have been a part of Operation Downfall had it occurred. A very green private storming a beach of the Japanese mainland... There is a decent chance he would have died in Japan, and I wouldn't be typing this right now. This is the first alternate history video I've watched that could have directly affected the probability of my existence. The feeling it gives me is...chilling.
What if the great depression got so bad, especially in the midwest, that an actual communist uprising took over America? It was a genuine worry, especially among the migrant workers.
you'd end up seeing the American Nazi Party and the Communist Party draining votes from the 'traditional' political left/right. Now imagine the absolute gonzo batshit idea of Trotsky as an american political figure.
+Joshua Rathbun Soviet-French alliance => if Germany invades one, it gets destroyed by the other. The Communists in France were not as eager to roll over and die like the OTL's leadership of the Republic did.
Because France is a mixed Government and unlike Venezuela, France has a economy that's works. Plus look at the Nordic Countries or Europe Union member states for example.
An outstanding theory Cody! I liked the way you addressed the topic with such professionalism and also addressed the role of the USSR in Japan's surrender, which is sth that is left largely untouched in much of modern media when discussing the final days of the Pacific front. Also, the animations were outstanding, really good job on that! I think they maybe repeated themselves a bit too often in some places, but they were very much welcomed. They were worth the wait for the video :D Good luck with future videos!
Well at this time people had heard about the Rape of Europe, the slaughter of the Nazis during the battle of Berlin. They were honestly scared of the Soviets and I really can't blame them. When you read up on some of the atrocities the Soviets committed during World War 2 you see why the Japanese surrendered, the threat of a bomb that flash boils a persons flesh doesn't help much either.
FullMontyUK Japan embarrassed the Russians in 1905 so I am sure Russia would have loved to best and dominate Japan. Also I doubt the Japanese would want a foreign gov't ruling over them with political officers appointed to see that the party's ideology is carried out.
The rape of Europe happened because the Nazis raped their way and burned their way and executed their way across Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. It wasn't something that the Soviets just decided to do. You want to talk about war crimes, talk about the 20 million soldiers and 10 million civilians dead as a result of the Nazi invasion. Deaths Hitler is responsible for, and deaths that fueled the the anger and hatred of the Soviet people. You talk about these atrocities as if it were on a whim. They weren't and when the Soviets made it to Konigsberg, the soldiers were baffled as to why the Germans invaded their country when they saw how nice it was on the other side of Europe. You want to talk about Rape of Europe look at Adolph Hitler with a collective of millions more Europeans dead as a direct result of his egotism.
I'm not saying that they were on a whim, I'm saying that the Soviets would associate what happened to them in Belarus and Ukraine and show a similar kind of brutality to the closest friends of the Nazis, the Japanese. Even if they wouldn't, exaggerated versions of what happened to the Nazis when the soviets invaded would have been heard by the Japanese that would make them scared. The same reason why America would fear the Soviets, well, that and their nukes.
Yeah, you are right people mostly feared the communist ideology, there wasn't much of a threat of a Rape of Japan but Japan still would get rekt by the Soviets either way.
One thing you forgot was that there was a big hurricane in Japan at the same time that the invasion was planned for. That would've created a whole other set of events.
Operation Olympic would never have happened anyway. Had the Japanese not surrendered when they did, Admiral Nimitz was going to go on record as being against the invasion of Kyushu due to intel reports showing that the strength of the Japanese defenders had been grossly underestimated. And he would have been backed by Admiral King. That would have been enough for President Truman to cancel the operation no matter how hard MacArthur protested. Had Olympic proceeded anyway, it would have been an absolute bloodbath for both sides. Olympic had been planned with a 3 to 1 numerical superiority. In reality, there were 1,000,000 Japanese soldiers and well over a million civilians ready to meet 1,000,000 Americans. And there were about 10,000 kamikazes that would have been much harder to shoot down than the ones over Okinawa, which saw about 3500 kamikazes attack the fleet there, as they would be flying low over the island and wouldn't be detected until they reached the fleet.
@@AlaskaErik Very much underestimated. If someone won't surrender after two nuclear bombs they won't surrender. Case in point, every nuclear armed country now. The only option then is total wipeout. Which is the MAD principle: there are enough nukes to totally wipe out US and Russia and possibly the world.
No. The Soviets didn't have the capability to land a large enough force on Japan to even take Hokkaido. They struggled to take Sakhalin even, which was defended by little more than an under strength division
@@michelangelobuonarroti4958 may be you've read something smart, but soviets not having resources,abilities or insistence for war in 1945 doesn't sound convimcing
I always hear people say that "the bombs were a mistake" or "im sure there was a better way" then i explain to them that there was another way OPERATION DOWNFALL. and i tell them that *ALOT* more people would have died if the bombs were not droped and we invaded instead. Now i can just show them a video instead of wasting my breath : )
off colored Except this video basically also implies that even without the bombs, Japan likely would still surrender anyway, due to the Soviet declaration of war HEAVILY OUTWEIGHING the atombic bombs. Not to mention how Japan was actually willing to surrender before then, but on the condition that they got to keep their emperor. The United States could have simply accepted that, given that they ultimately let them keep their emperor anyway.
Parker Hetzel So basically you are disagreeing with my initial statement then, that Japan likely would have surrendered even if that atomic bombs had not dropped.
Parker Hetzel The first thing you should understand though is that Japan actually was thinking about surrendering before the atomic bombs were dropped, but under the condition that they got to keep their emperor. Looking back on it now, the United States could have just accepted that offer, given how they ultimately Japan keep their emperor anyway. That is all I have time to type right now. I will get back to you later and finish my response.
When I was stationed on Guam, I got involved with a woman from Saipan. When we were up visiting her family, she showed me all kinds of stuff from the war. One of the things that stuck with me was Suicide Cliffs, and Banzai Bluffs. After being ordered by the General, the men took their families to Suicide Cliffs and threw them into the ocean. The General believed the soldiers would be more focused without being distracted by family, and so would fight harder. Imagine that the whole length of Japan.
“The General believed the soldiers would be more focused without being distracted by family, so they had the soldiers push them in the ocean.” What. The. Fuck.
This should be a movie. Opening text "in 1945, in order to end the war. The US dropped two atomic bombs, Heroshima and Nagasaki... ... ... ... ... ... but what if they hadn't?" (Opening scene is Okinawa)
after watching the entire video I would not mind a Movie or a TV series on Operation Downfall I think it would be interesting to see how WW2 could have really turned out to be and of course, it would be extremely dark and tragic 😔
I read a pretty good novel about an invasion of Japan maybe 30 years ago, and IIRC it was called "Olympic." This makes me want to read it again but I'm sure it's out of print and I'm not even sure that's the right title. But it would've made a good movie.
+despairedboy that wasn't a problem back in WW2. It only became one now because the Middle East turned into a hellhole and everyone started killing each other over religion. Realistically the US probably would have got involved to protect financial interests in china, but not on as large scale as we did historically.
American Patriot your joking right do you really think the US would join the nazis who killed many of their people and Britains Canada's and polands join the Italians and Germans?
sonicx7410 that's actually true since one of the main anime films that lead to its popularity in the west was related to the idea of nuclear weapons and things.
BlackbeardGaming that's too weird after all Germany vs soviet union was the main point for the war for hitler, its more likely the UK joins germany and fights the Soviets since they were both anticommunists
The war would've lasted until about 1950. 100+ million people would die, nukes would be spammed, and the war would end in more of stalemate than victory.
MrMosbyOfficial VEVO Well, lets assume it happens today from the time this comment was made. America would become demilitarized since they rely on the hero. Russian forces would invade the USA and so would China. Disputes on the land will be made and some Russo-Chinese war can happen. Meanwhile, Europe is in anarchy since the USA had collapsed and Russia is getting lots of power, which leads to NATO being disbanded. Assuming Russia does get the entire USA with nuclear bomb threats, it would invade all Non-EU members in Europe and become the major superpower. This will lead to a probable cause of World War 3 as Russia vs the rest of the world. It will lead to nukes and Russia will have over 90% of the nukes. The thing is, France will have the 2nd most nukes. So it'd be a nuclear war and in the end everyone will have to die due to the immense nuclear arsenal Russia will have and the amount of nukes France and the rest will have combined.
What two things that get lost to history. 1) More Japanese civilians died in fire bombings than both nuclear bomb drops. This was due to most Japanese buildings were made of wood. 2) After the Japanese surrender thousands died from famine for years afterwards. General MacArthur told the chiefs he needed food or bullets when he took over Japan as Supreme Commander because that was how bad it was. He would have to fight a massive starving riot from the civilian population or allow him to feed them. They released tons of food that ironically was being stock piled for the invasion. Now add another 6 months to 1 year of bombing and invading and the nation might have collapsed into a 3rd world nation or worse. The one thing that makes no sense is I don't see how the Soviets could invade Japan. They had almost no navy and you would need a force the size of D-Day. They had to build up that force and had zero experience. Not that Soviet doctrine gave two shits about their men. I suspect the war would have been over before the Soviets even were close to ready.
Actually my grandmother and grandfather told me that Mexican Army was going to join the American Army invading Japan they send a couple squadrons to the Philippines two assists and translating from Spanish to English but more importantly Mexico is going to invade Japan they wanted a piece of the action they just got into the war a little bit too late and there were training and drilling an invasion tactics on Mexican Islands to invade Japan crazy
@Reunite The British Empire Their navy was horribly outdated and could've been outbeat by literally any Navy. The Japanese or even the Americans would've taken them down quickly.
@Reunite The British Empire from Wikipedia "By August 1945, the Pacific Fleet consisted of two cruisers, one destroyer leader, ten destroyers, two torpedo boats, 19 patrol boats, 78 submarines, ten minelayers, 52 minesweepers, 49 "MO" anti-submarine boats (MO stands for Малый Охотник, or "little hunter"), 204 motor torpedo boats and 1459 war planes." So as i said before the Soviets didnt have a sizable navy in the Pacific, go back to warthunder you stupid tankie
@Reunite The British Empire cool insult bro, do you want to address my citation and how it proves you wrong now? The Soviets had no surface fleet in the Pacific and they were not capable of invading japan especially with the us navy in the way. Do you have any clue how logistically difficult amphibious invasions were in the second world war? There's a reason the American, British, and Japanese navys (which which were the finest in the world at the time) all struggled with it, compared to them the soviet sailors were a bunch of amateurs at best, especially since stalin purged most of the soviet navys leadership in the 30s. don't even get me started about how woefully obsolete most of the russian ships were, alot of them predated the first world war. Oh by the way the fact that you are suggesting that the Soviet airforce could somehow be used to bring soldiers into japan is more evidence that you have no clue what you are talking about, the soviets had no experience with successful large scale vertical insertion and one time they tried in the war they lost (at Bryansk). This was at a time when the entire idea of it was still in its infancy and the Soviets were not capable of pulling it off.
Reunite The British Empire You must be adept at debates if you try to wither away at your opponent by insulting them in arbitrary evidence to confirm why you dont need to debate them
I am happy this is a public comment. The Japanese detonated their own nuke in Konan, North Korea, not long after we detonated our bombs. If our bombs never had worked, theirs might have. In a sub, detonated under our invasion fleet, well you have seen the photos of our Pacific Island tests. Check it out. National Geographic did a special on it. We were in a nuclear arms race and did not know it. If we had not ended the war (saving millions of lives) they might have sent a sub into SanFransisco and blown it up in the Bay! That would give us pause and changed the course of the war. The Russians would have invaded, captured the Japanese facility and had the bomb before we did! There's a thought. Hope he makes a "What If" out of that idea.
What if the Belgian revolution of 1799 succeeded? What if the Ottomans won the siege of Vienna? What if the battle of the Dardanelles was a British victory? What if Japan never declared war on the US in ww2?
Leurquin François What if the U.S joined the the central powers in ww1 & surprising enough most Americans wanted to join the Central powers instead of the Allies ...
Near to become like Korean war or Vietnam War. Remember, during the Warring States era, the time of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, so many died of civil wars. Just like that.
I'm not convinced North and South Japan would have a "Japanese War", like Korea and Vietnam. Both Korea and Vietnam have had a long history of fighting foreign occupiers before the US entered the picture. Freeing their brothers from "imperial colonizers" was one of the main reasons the Korean and Vietnam war happened. It wasn't China or Russia that pushed North Korea and North Vietnam into war, it was their own people seeking foreign help for a "war of liberation and independence" Since Japan has never been occupied, I think it would look more like West & East Germany. Peaceful yet bitter.
My father was in the Army at this time. He often said he and his buddies all knew they were going to be part of the invasion force in Japan, with death very likely. I've always said that I owe my life to the atomic bomb. It's worth remembering that we had to drop two bombs before the Emperor surrendered. Even then, he had to thwart a palace coup to do it.
We made a million Purple Hearts in preparations of the massive casualties faced for Operation Downfall. To this day US armed forces are still handing out these Purple Hearts to our servicemen and women
You know if you kind of think about it, the mindset of the Japanese Empire is actually kind of similar to the fictional Imperium of Mankind of Warhammer 40K.
Johan Aanvik yeah, pretty much every mindset from every country who fought in world war 2 is different to the same countries that exist today, maybe the country still closest to their countries mindset in ww2 is russia
Japan reached new heights. They were different in that unlike other countries, their mindset were less driven by the government and politics by comparison. Their fighting spirit are cultural.
@@spleen5527 The soviet union didn't cause the Japanese to surrender, the emperor realised the nation was runing out of supplies, and more fighting would cause a revolution.
@@spleen5527 The Germans basically fought until there was no Nazi territory left. Japan would probably jave done the same, as I think the Japanese devotion to the Emperor was greater than the German's was to Hitler. Atomic bombs were a new weapon that broke even the military's willpower and hopes to bleed America white.
My father was a 1942 Bataan Death march survivor. In 1945 he was recalled to active duty with the Philippine army. He told me that if the Atom bomb did not end the war then I would have never been born (I was born after the war). He explained that he and his comrades were preparing for Operation Downfall in 1945 and they actually looked forward to it. Many of them were Death march survivors and they all had a personal grudge with the Japanese. He did not care if it was going to be a one way trip and all his comrades felt the same way. They were all planning to raise absolute havoc regardless of consequences. The atrocities the Japanese did in the Philippines further justified what they had in mind. Did you know a similar contingent was also being prepared in China. The Chinese had an even bigger axe to grind with the Japanese. Imagine what legions of vindictive maniacs would have done in Japan. The anti-Bomb activists of today live in an alternate reality to say that the bomb was cruel and should have never been used.
My Dad was a marine with the First Marine division. He fought at Peleiu and Okinawa. He never shared much about his experiences, but did share how when he was on Okinawa preparing to invade Japan. One night in August while his outfit was a watching a movie in the rain, gunfire erupted from the naval ships offshore. A radio operator ran up and interrupted the movie. He shouted: "It's Over! The War is Over!" My dad and his fellow marines went nuts, throwing chairs, screaming and crying with relief. A few even punched each other. The ships offshore were shooting in celebration. If that makes me biased for favoring the atomic bombing of Japan, so be it. An excellent fictional book on a hypothetical invasion of Japan is the 1970 novel"Lighter Than a Feather" by Davd Westheimer. While fiction, it is extremely well researched and gives a pretty good idea how the invasion would go down, as seen by the POV of the books' many characters from both sides. I highly recommend it.
It was the most horrific bombing and that is what people don't understand. Many of the men involved with the Manhattan project killed themselves after they saw pictures of what the bombs did, black and white pictures. The bombs flash boiled human flesh, killed children and destroyed schools. This wasn't the most deadly bombing Japan had withstood, it was the most gruesome.
what's your source on researchers on the Manhattan project killing themselves? Metal Gear Solid? Most of the major scientists and minor ones like Feynman seemed to live the rest of their lives just fine.
If you mean the massive hurricane destroying their fleet like ht it hit so many mongol invaders. That would mean the US had no ability to detect storms.
@mr_ anheuser Dude the only one embarrassing themselves here is you. The Russians had no fucking Navy, and he's right, the Japanese weren't even remotely focused on the Soviets. They were mentioned for precisely the reasons he listed in his comment above. As for your remarks about material and numerical advantages??? We fucking invaded them by sea you absolute lemming. They had the numbers.
@Nobody Knows The Soviets did have a navy and while it alone was not strong enough to challange the IJN, the US navy already destroyed them enough to not pose a major threat. The Soviets had already taken the Kuril islands by naval landings and Southern-Sakhalin was also recaptured. It would not have been too hard for the Soviets to send troups from Sakhalin to Hokkaido as the Soviet Airforce would pose too much of a threat for the IJN to intercept them. A Soviet invasion of the mainland would have been a dissaster for Japan as the weakend IJA would be outclassed by the mechanized Soviet Red Army and not be capable of putting up a succesfull defense. Claiming that Japan did not fear the Soviets and played no significant role in the surrender of Japan is just wrong. The big reason Japan went after America was because of their fear of the Soviet-Union following the borderconflicts of 1939 which the Soviets won. As well as the fear that capitualtion to the Soviets would end with the abolishment of the empire and replacement with a communist republic. It was also the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that played a major role in the final Japanese surrender as the Chinese front collapsed and a major portion of their forces was cut off from Japan and captured in Manchuria. _Edit: Typo_
@mr_ anheuser I just noticed I tagged the wrong person. I actually meant to tag the other guy who was disagreeing with you. I edited the previous comment too. But it's a shame that people always discard the Soviet contributions in the pacific theather.
@@Admiral_Jezza Doesn't matter. The Soviets did not have the amphibious capability whether they face a navy or not to invade the Japanese main islands. Logistics would be impossible and landing in the first place would be a near to zero chance.
The US did not retake every island occupied by Japan. They took key islands needed for moving forward and left the other islands to “wither on the vine”.
1:54 Dropping nukes on Japan was *not* part of the strategy, if for no other reason than the strategists didn't know that The Bomb existed!! You also missed the typhoon that hit Japan in October 1945. It would have sunk many troop transport ships, and given a great boost to the defenders. Also, the Sovs didn't have in amphibious invasion equipment or experience.
I have read through many of the comments, and think the ones concerning the "what if" about the Soviets were the most interesting. I would be a supporter of the notion that the Soviets would not be able to mount an appreciable invasion of Japan, if any at all. The Soviet far east at that time was not very industrialized and it might take a while for them to develop the necessary equipment (air support, naval support and supply lines) for such an endeavor. Also note, that in the scenario of this video that Japan does not surrender, hence the Soviets would have their hands tied up fighting the Japanese armies on the mainland and where could they launch their assaults on Japan from with out the Koran peninsula? It took the US a while to get the amphibious landing down to a skill and figured out (all the while the Japanese were getting better at defending against them.) My guess is that the Soviets had not even considered an invasion of Japan or did not put much effort into planning (not much for them to gain there. More to gain on the mainland. How that might have changed the future if all the Korean peninsula was Soviet, possibly no Korean War. As far as the other Allied forces helping to invading Japan there are more places to land on a bigger island, and even the US experience in Europe with Airborne operations might come into play. Who says we would only land on beaches? There could be many scenarios of draws and feints. As far as the other Allied forces helping to invading Japan I think that there would be more, but how much more? I know that a lot of the US Navy was on its way to Asia from the European theater. Due to the fact that the supply lines across the Atlantic did need as much protection .(My Dad, Coast Guard/Navy WWII veteran DE-251, was moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific said he was scared of the Kamikazes. Destroyers were there to serve as a antiaircraft vanguard to protect the bigger ships. I don't have statistics but I think from what I heard more DD and DEs got sunk by the Kamikazes. He was thankful they never got caught up to the battle fleets of the Pacific. Remembering you DAD!) My guess is only a small portion of the Allies' European armies probably would have only been sent to the far east. There was still the threat that the Soviets would make more land grabs if there were not as many Allies in their way. Thus the only troops that could be sent were if Soviet forces move from Europe to Asia and could be mirrored by the Allies. (Unfortunately the Soviets could move their troops faster than the Allies to the far east and back.) I am not sure how much extra help would be on it way for the Allies that were in Asia. They would still engaged in the Burma Theater and plenty of Japanese in SE Asia (I.e. the scenario: the Japanese did not surrender in August). My notion is that if Japan did not surrender in August and the Japan mainland had to be invaded that there would not be a splitting of Japan between the Soviets and Allies. For the invasion, the losses would be high, but American war technology was getting better and better and Japan's ability to produce the requirements to fight were dwindling. I think that the invasion would defiantly have triggered more Japanese atrocities against all prisoners/slaves that they had, either killing them outright, work them quickly to death, use them as bait or using them to shield their own forces. (The fate of the POWs would have the greatest long term effects on psyche of America.) Once a foot hold was gained the need for rapid advances might not be necessary, and the Allies could be satisfied by beating down the Japanese with unyielding bombardment (and possibly other new war technologies used) where needed and where the fighting forces were heavily entrenched/fortified encircle and contain. (I think they did some of that on some of the island campaigns.) I know there were plans to fortify the main islands: does anybody know what stage the fortifications plans were in or how effective they would have been? My guess not many effective fortifications completed. Japan throughout the war had trouble sustaining its forces, and now would be under more and constant pressure to maintain what fighting forces that they had (even the civilians being trained as suicide fighters can't fight if starving and weak.) The main target would have to be Tokyo. Tokyo is basically on a wide open plain, and I would say not a very defendable terrain. One might venture that something drastic would happen once Tokyo/Emperor was in definite striking distance/danger from the Allies. The losses would all depend on when the Japanese Emperor and/or Army would blink. Just some speculation. Open to comments and who knows might change my mind tomorrow. Definitely interesting to read the comments as they help fill in some gaps in forming the background of the alternative history thought challenge.
I'm 4 years late to the party. The Soviets did not have a Pacific navy large enough to support an invasion. They could not sail their European fleet to the Pacific (it didn't go well the last time they tried, they don't get to use the Suez Canal, also still not enough ships). They could not build the necessary ships in Eastern Russia. The Soviets and US never collaborated tactically and strategic collaboration was in free fall. The USN would've basically told the Soviets to keep out or else, and it wouldn't have been difficult for the now idle submarine and escort carrier groups to back up the threat. Also despite what we typically think about Stalin's USSR, they were a lot more open to taking Japanese troops prisoner than the US. They weren't afraid of the Soviets, the Soviets ended playtime in China which was the reason why Japan was fighting the US. But yeah basically the USSR would've been spreading its influence a lot harder in Asia if the US was occupied in fighting on the Japanese mainland
Saunterblugget Hampterfuppinshire but they are 😑 anime is japanese mean animation, so for japanese Frozen, Tom & Jerry,Final Fantasy 7,Naruto are all anime the misconception is caused by the so called otaku outside of Japan , of course it was a super simplified version,japanese animation is indeed somewhat different and calling them anime to separate then from other animated movie to avoid misunderstanding is sound argument
Should've named it Operation: Sunset
Underrated comment.
operation rising sun
That would be such a slap to the face to the Japanese
O
We also should have called our battle plans against Germany "Operation: Kraut Control". So many missed opportunities...
Iwo Jima was one of the most devastating battles in all of the Corps’ history. The invasion of Japan would be almost unimaginable.
Okinawa was worse
RedAlertSteve _ .... the scale of the Battle of Okinawa was a lot larger than Iwo Jima. The percentage of American casualties got higher the closer to mainland Japan that American forces got.
Robert Dawson correct
Carson Casmirri
Iwo Jima or D-Day?
I invaded Japan in HOI4 and kicked ass.
I remember my grandpa telling me he was terrified of having to invade the Japanese home islands.
Kevin Burkhamer
Rightfully so too
I knew several Japanese colleagues who's grandparents would say the same thing (of an American Invasion).
If a battle-hardened American Marine / soldier was terrified, just imagine a Japanese civilian who's entire family and way of life was at risk. That's what would've made them much more dangerous because at that point, they would have everything to lose and literally would've fought tooth and nail.
It would've been a bloodbath for everyone
@@mjohnsimon1337 Grandpa was in the Army, 3rd Amored Signals Corps. He was in Europe, just knocked down the Nazis. They were gonna send them towards Japan but the ended before they transferred him over there.
My grandpa fought for the nazis and helped to take poland and france
@John Fitzgerald Kennedy No, it wasnt
I remember talking with a WWII vet who fought in the Pacific Theater. He said that he was glad the Japanese surrendered or he and countless others would have died in the invasion of Japan.
My late father-in-law, in the US Navy Atlantic Theater had just been sent to the Pacific in June, arriving at Okinawa in mid-July (just in time for a typhoon!) He would've been involved in the invasion; thank God he wasn't.
looking back on ww2, it was really just sorta a "how long can you last" when it came to battles and invasions
soldiers who lived through d-day probably saw their fate on a later battle just a week after
I also talked to one, he said he was gonna be one of the first attacking Japan. He said they were being told they’d have to be ready to kill kids. He’s glad the bombs were dropped
If there had been a land invasion of Japan, then we would have regular anime and communist anime
Cory anime would be right in the middle. A nice blend of capitalism and totalitarian socialism
cory Sensei Communist anime Cold War? I'm in. All JRPGs games would have Russia be evil vodka drinking bear riding non-commie anymore almost cosmonauts.
i don't think anime would exist.
Anime is communist prpaganda MERICA
Optical Gaming except Anime was invented in Japan or were you bring sarcastic
A colossal bloodbath avoided. Best scenario took place. Japan rebuilds, Russian influence halted, our grandfathers come home in 1945 instead of dying in ‘46.
and only american anime exists insted of having to deal with russian anime
"Our grandfathers come home in 1945 instead of dying in '46." is a sentence that hit me harder than it should have
A lot of people talk bad about America dropping the nukes but don’t realize how much more death would’ve occurred without them. Also, did you know the USA actually warned Japan about the nukes before we dropped them. We told them to evacuate the cities so no civilians would be killed but they didn’t so eventually we had to drop em anyway.
Legendary Monkey I just heard this, and only from one source, so I’m not taking it too seriously until I find more information to corroborate this, but I heard recently that Japan had offered to negotiate a peace treaty earlier in year, but the offer was refused because, A: The US wanted nothing less than Japan’s complete surrender, and B: The US wanted use its newly developed nuclear weapon as a demonstration of power. Using nukes to end World War II may be the only opportunity to do so in a way that still made the US look like the good guy.
I don’t know if that’s someone’s theory, or if there is any truth to it. Usually, what really happened falls somewhere in between.
@@xnetpc yeah over heard about that too but I heard the USA rejected it because the Japanese wanted to keep control of all its assets of land it gained and that weren’t taken back yet. So the USA declined and asked for total surrender of all conquered lands and they also declined.
Hey everyone. Two reasons for my absence. 1) Finals suck. And going to classes and finishing papers/projects took up most of my time the last month. 2) Learning new technology. I'm trying to make this content more engaging and am learning new programs to do that. The learning curve took time but I finally 'mastered' it enough to make new videos.
This video is basically the dam holding all the content back. Everything you've been waiting for (Alternate Countries, Germany Pt. 2) that'll be out in the next few weeks. I'm not taking a holiday break because I gotta make it up to you guys somehow. Thanks for the support.
-Cody
AlternateHistoryHub love ur videos dude keep up the good work also don't worry ur doing good by us
AlternateHistoryHub Then korea will fall under the Soviet Union........
AlternateHistoryHub Then korean will become the independent.
AlternateHistoryHub no problem man
AlternateHistoryHub Please review the what if central power won the ww1 series!
missed the opportunity to call it Operation Sunset, fitting for the Land of the Rising Sun
Are u dumb as shit? The US military called it Downfall...
That would have been a clue and a give away. Only the Joker does that. Operation Overlord not withstanding.
@@juanpaz5124 Yikes, you have 0 braincells. You're dumb as shit.
@@mug1337 mhm
Ricardo Milos Reading is hard, huh?
The USA was preparing by creating that many purple hearts to the point that those purple hearts are still in surplus
that’s morbid
@@Zawmbbeh Just being realistic. They knew conquering Japan island by island would be a long slog.
We still have about 100,000 left. They just issue them in the field and let the paperwork catch up.
500,000 they really thought we lose that many. That's why the atomic bomb was the saving grace as horrible as it was.
I'm curious, what's a purple heart????
@@sherlockholmes2096 The Purple Heart is the US award given for being injured in the line of duty.
My Father’s best friend was in the 1st Marines. Served from Guadalcanal onward..... He was training for the Japanese invasion. After Okinawa everyone knew what it would mean, casualty wise, to invade the home islands.
After the Atomic Bombs were dropped and the surrender was announced he was stunned as he had already counted himself as a future casualty. As he walked around his base he saw tough men crying like little girls. He then sat down and for the first time he began to think about going home, marriage to his G/F and having a family...
If the resistance we faced on Okinawa and Iwo Jima were a true extrapolation of what we would see with an invasion of the Home Islands, then Operation Downfall would have essentially led to the genocide of the Japanese people. The military junta wanted nothing less than to fight to the last man. They were bent on suicide on a national level.
@XZDrake There is also some thought that the junta would have over committed forces to attempting to retake the southern portion of the Southernmost island. Which by both the name of that operation and the line of furthest advance can be seen as the main point is simply to get the Japanese to relocate some of the garrison divisions from the central plains someplace out of the way. We already had plenty of air bases and could have captured some much smaller islands easier if we needed more.
I'd find it hard to believe that there wasn't a single rational person in Japan. There were many businessmen as there are today and I don't think the president of Mitsubishi would have fought to his last breath.
Exactly, the video does not bring this into the equation. The junta ruled Japan, the emperor was little more than a beloved figurehead. It was unheard of for an emporer to do what Hirohito did: he went on the radio to address the people. Up to that moment you could count on your fingers how many people had heard his voice. His address was practically a coup.
Civilians did not fight on Iwo Jima or Okinawa and would have been useless on the Main Islands. It is true, the people would have taken a beating but American losses would have been near the low estimates if not less. American leadership would not tolerate high American losses and the bombers would have hit very pebble and blade of grass.
@@bg147It is that true no civilians died on Iwo Jima... because they had been evacuated. 100,000 civilians died on Okinawa.
Operation Downfall would have been very costly. I was told Japan had held back substantial amounts of their newest and best weaponry for this eventuality. Also that civilians including women and children had mandatory training to resist to the end. There might have been a knife or pointed stick around every corner.
@Sakkra101 By August 1945...the US army had much better than the Sherman, even the improved variants.
It was well known by then the extent to which the Japanese would go in doomed, last stand defenses. Had downfall gone forward, it would have been a wrecking ball demolishing everything in its path, the only option available for the Japanese would have been suicide charges as all cover would get destroyed the moment it came into range of the big guns.
Yeah, they actually made rocket powered kamikaze planes and manned torpedoes
@@wtfbros5110 i mean that's what happens when you buy stuff from germany while they're in the same situation that you're pretty sure you're going to fall into as well
As Star Craft taught me... it's not about the tech, it's about the Zerg.
Honestly, I'd like to see this be a mini series on HBO or something
Read / view Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" classic book, also an HBO series. I've tried many times to read it, always had to quit because it became too horrible.
It would probably end with Truman dropping the atomic bomb on Tokyo after the Japanese surrender.
I am planning to write a book called "Operation: Downfall" or something like that
a book has already been written.
@@veralenora7368 the man in the high castle is an Amazon series
1. What if the USSR won the Afghan War?
2. What if NATO accepted the 1952 "Stalin Note"?
3. What if the Kuomintang won the Chinese Civil War?
4. What if Tsar Alexander II was not assassinated in 1881?
5. What if Brazil remained a monarchy?
6. What if the Watergate scandal never happened?
7. What if Russia won the Russo-Japanese War?
8. What if the United States joined the League of Nations?
9. What if the Ottoman Turks won the Battle of Vienna?
10. What if Austria won the Austro-Prussian War?
I'm all for #3. Imagine China being a democracy with the same GDP per capita as Taiwan or ROK.
92axelmaster China is a huge country. I expect that to be true only for coastal regions. Even today, if you look at the GDP per capita of China's provinces, a huge discrepancy exists between coastal and inland provinces. In fact, coastal wealthy cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou are already very developed.
Voice of Reason, what if Constantinople was never taken by the Turks
chris chambers what if the Byzantine empire never fell
What if Greece won the Greco-Turkish war?
Unlike the Mongols, America didn't die in a Tornado.
They were the Tornado.
That Warstarian Vulcan Monsoon*
*typhoon
Can we.. not glorify this jingoistic view of war and military? Sure it might be necessary, but that doesn't mean we should call it great.
Writer Shard its a joke
"They had a nice time fighting with the Americans but then they died in a tornado"
This is going to be buried but I think its just a fun fact. My Grandpa was with the 1st Marine Division and has initial assignment was to be apart of the invading force in Operation Downfall. Though since Japan surrendered he was sent to China to be somewhat of a police force defending the Nationalist from the Communists. (Some of my timeline may be wrong it is a story from my dead Grandpa. And family stories are often inconsistent but hey something that is fun to share)
Your grandpa must have been a badass.
@@ajinkyatarodekar9099 From what I heard he was
Does he introduce himself by saying "The nuclear bomb saved my life"
@@tomsim22 i wish
Your grandpa wanted to have an adventure didn’t he?
'The war would have been extended by a year'
*Mad Jack Churchil intensifies*
What a madlad
That man would’ve brought the emperor to his knees
@J M and u are from Where??
@J M The Japanese wouldn't have surrendered as they thought it as the most dishonorable action someone could do. The entire reason they did banzai charges were because it was most honorable to go out in battle.
I think longer, at least year and half, possibly two.
There's an interesting wrinkle to consider as well. Namely the Kyūjō incident; even after the bombs were dropped, a cadre of junior officers in the IJA and Imperial Guard learned of the Emperor's intent to make a radio broadcast announcing the surrender, and planned to abduct him so that the broadcast would not take place.
I love this story. It was featured on the history channel back when it didnt suck. It was called The Last Mission. What a strange story about an attempted government take over to prevent surrender that resulted in a general shot dead, all conspirators killing themselves, and the war ending anyway.
Yep. Not many people know about that fact
@@kevinhasch3097 Not many indeed. I love strange obscure history like this. It's why I adore the Battle for Castle Ita.
Operation Valkyrie but its Anime
@@janusceasar7851 You know.... your not wrong.
My grandfather earned two bronze stars fighting the Japanese in WW2. When asked about dropping the nuclear bombs he never wavered that it was, 'the best thing that could have happened for both sides'. The one thing this video failed to address was the fanatic japanese military AND citizenship. Every man, woman, and child would have been used in a variety of suicide attacks: detonation packs, traps, etc etc. The loss of japanese life would have been unlike anything seen before. My grandfather would have been involved in that invasion, and my whole line might not exist.
Caius Lang no he obviously was talking about the US dropping the bombs
cyberpimp29 My grandpa served in the European theatre and D-day. If he died in either one of them, I would’ve ceased to exist
Nugget In a biscuit *dabbing emoji*
Same, my grandfather fought in Northern Europe though and met my grandmother when he liberated her town in the Netherlands.
cyberpimp29 My Great Grandfather fought in the battle of Haifa in Israel during the first world war. Had he not survive, I would've never existed.
Yes the Japanese has thousands of kamikaze pilots ready to fly into the Allied navy.
We lost 15,000 lives taking Okinawa, an island of 700 square miles. To take Kyushu, and island of almost 15000 square miles, would easily take a couple hundred thousand lives.
For everyone who would cry about how we shouldn’t have bombed Japan, it was either that or this.
well technically the there was a third option,which was technically what we gave them post war minus the nukes,which was emperor stays on the throne,but that would've been a controversial move on the US GOV's part.
I wholeheartedly agree
America would've ironically done a Nanking against Japan.
You completely ignored the point that the Soviet Union was the main motivation for Surrender. Hirohito would've almost certainly surrendered regardless through fear of the Soviets as soon as they invaded manchuria, dropping the bomb was gratuitous
@@Whitelockblackwell4499 who knows japanese people may have been totally wiped
You left out a very important aspect of this operation: because the US anticipated very high casualties, the military was preparing to deploy chemical weapons on Japan to help in expediting victory.
I believe there was some disagreement on that front.
@@bg147 there was no disagreement according to my father who was slated to invade in Operation Downfall. The US Army chemical warfare units were ready to go with agents that had been taken from the Nazis. Furthermore the concept of civilians armed with spears was countered by arming the US troops with captured German machine guns. You simply sprayed the people before they could get close enough to attack.My father like many of the invading troops were combat veterans of the Pacific or brought over from the ETO. They were used to killing people and had long ago put any qualms to rest. In conclusion, the Japanese people would be overwhelmed and slaughtered before they had a chance to resist.
@@johncomstock2759 That is wild. They would have been obliterated. The US leadership never would have tolerated a million in losses. It would have been carpet bombing, starvation, flame throwers, chemicals as you stated, and anything else.
@@johncomstock2759 OR -- the Japanese could have used their own chemical weapons plus their biological weapons (tested in China) and rendered the Allied-occupied parts of Japan uninhabitable.
@@chozer1 Well you can belive what you want but Operation Downfall was designed to be a kill them all invasion. The main reason I know my father was telling me the truth was the details came out while he was preparing me for MY trip to hell in Vietnam.
Actually there was supposed to be a coup lead against Emperor Hirorito by extremist imperials. If this had succeeded, Tojo and the military leaders could've kept the war going
EDIT: Correction, Tojo had nothing to do with the coup, it was solely hardliners in the Imperial Japanese Army.
Yes, one account of this is "The longest day". According to this account, the plot was spoiled due to a US air raid over the general area at the right time.
@@jonnunn4196 This is correct. The coup was (unknowingly) foiled by a US air raid.
But due to how the emperor was seen a god to the Japanese Tojo would of failed before the coup even began
I think if that coup had succeeded then it’d be much like the Senate killing Caesar
@@reedcoffman3210 Remember he had a brother who was WAY more militaristic than Hirohito
If they invaded Kanto, then the Americans would have a hard time fighting Rhydons, Charizards, and Gyrados among other Pokemon.
TheHero136 😂
*Unovans
No see, Alola isn't Hawaii, it's a region based off of Hawaii, and that's why it has a different name. :) :) :) Meanwhile Kanto is a real place, so it would have the Pokemon whereas Hawaii would not. :) :) :) The US should have grabbed Alola when they had the chance. :) :) :)
Alternate History what if Pokemon were real?
Bullets beat magic, son.
My father signed up for this operation. Got him out of occupation duties in Europe. Canadian army. Got him home in time for university in September. Meanwhile my uncle who served in the Aleutian, Italy and NW Europe didn't get home till spring 1946
Must’ve had balls of steel to voluntarily sign up for this shit
@@Bruh-yi8lg Either that, or some serious foresight on what the Japanese would do, like serious prophet like foresight.
Boku no picu could've only been made by a country that was nuked twice
Kousin Kevin Boku no picu
Edwardo Kenway fixed
Scatted go pico the shit out of your ass
Kousin Kevin ok, ty. just helping with spelling
Kousin Kevin its actually pico...
Holy shit the production quality is amazing! Good job Bilbo.
Lincoln Yang his name is Cody
President of the USA, Donald J Trump DILDO GAGGINS
President of the USA, Donald J Trump oh and hello mr president(bends the knee)
When the US and Russia team up:
Literally every other country: Ah shit, here we go again
the big three, American ignorance is so tiring.
@@paulpaterson1661 because Britain helped so much in the Pacific theater, the US had provided Britain with almost all of it's supplies while it was being attacked by Germany, you literally would've starved if not for American lend lease, and although Britain did help in the European theatre, the help Britain and Australia provided was very little compared to the massive US force island hopping toward the Japanese homeland
Imagine Russia, America and China becoming a single country. Just think about it 🤔
@@Steinmannz That would never happen. So get your head out of the clouds.
John Marston chill bro. It’s just a concept don’t take it so seriously.
Everyone loves to brainstorm what the invasion of fortress Japan would have looked like. But the truth is there was a third reason the Emperor surrendered. He had finally found out the true state of the nation. There was no food with which to continue to fight. And once the food ran out the Japanese people would quickly turn on the leadership and the emperor. The Emperors council knew they were down to mere weeks until such an event happened. Add to this that they had no remaining industrial capacity. By the time of surrender their largest and pretty much only source of metal was in scavenging shrapnel and fragments from US dropped bombs. They had no fuel. They had no ammunition. This is why Stalin was able to roll over hundreds of thousands of troops in Manchuria.
For some reason the myth of the worst case scenario of operation downfall persists. But what the US found when the Japanese did surrender was a nation at the point of complete collapse. This is why the first thing the US Generals did on arriving in Japan was to call for a massive sea lift of food.
Thank u for the info
Thats a worthwhile point.The Japanese would have done just about anything for their Emperor but would have starvation brought on a rebellion?Possibly? Also the point in the video about the Russian Invasion of Japanese occupied Manchuria being much more significant than the dropping of the Atomic Bombs is also worth pondering. Like the Germans the Japanese appeared to fear the Russians much more and the thought of a Communist Japan eliminating or executing the Emperor might have been the final straw .
John Milanese What the Japanese would be willing to do for their emperor is a bit of a question. What the Army would do is one thing. Given the intense immersion into the brutal military culture. What the civilians would do is altogether different. In the weeks before the surrender an event spooked the Royal Handlers. The Emperor was returning from some inspection on function and the people were started to gather around his car. The one clearly marked with the Chrysanthemum crest. The people were not show proper respect. They were showing anger. Security quickly got him out of there, But it did make everyone nervous. The Emperor surrendered because he saw doing so as the only potential chance, of preserving the 5000 year old Imperial system in some form. He knew what the Russians did to Royalty. He saw what was fast approaching from his own people. The American’s were his best chance at keeping his head, as weird as it sounds. Even if he had to face a war crimes trial, the Imperial seat might live on. He lucked out, in that MacArthur seemed to be thinking along similar lines. (Proving our Grandfathers knew much better than we did, how to successfully manage a defeated nation and bring it peacefully into the modern world.Sadly GW Bush clearly never read any books by Marshall or MacArthur on the subject.)
Cool info. Do you have sources to back that up ? I am genuinely interested
@@arnaudyohmassenet Oh wow,. It appears in a number of well researched books. I think one is Downfall, The Fall of Imperial Japan, I forget the author. It's really weird, the first few weeks following the Japanese surrender are really well documented. Than there is almost nothing until the Korean War and Godzilla movies start. Just very little English Language information. But when talking about the end of WW2 and examining what was actually going on on the Japanese side, it's best to think of it as three distinct groups. The Army Leadership who controlled the Ruling Council and the Government. The "Peace Faction" which was mainly the Foreign Minister and Navy Minister (who no longer had a Navy by that point) who were trying to go Lone Wolf and start unofficial Peace Negotiations through Stalin, without Government or Emperors leave. And Finally the Emperor and the Imperial Household. Who had their own interests and agendas. The actual Japanese People were in no way represented by any of these three. Of them the Emperor probably cared the most about the people. While at the same time having a limited understanding of them. But at the same time The Emperor feared a populist Communist uprising more than anything else. And did not want Stalin and the Communists to gain a foothold in Japan. That more than anything probably led to his decision with regard to betting everything on surrendering to the Americans.
I have to disagree with you about the Russian factor outweighing the nuclear one. When he surrendered, the emperor recorded two different messages. The one played to the populace as a whole said that he was surrendering to save the people from the horrors and barbarity of the atomic bomb. The message played to the military talked about how the Soviet entry into the war meant that there was no other option. The real reason had to do with the emperor himself. The Japanese considered the emperor to be a divine being. If an atomic bomb was dropped on Tokyo, it was possible that lineage could be destroyed. That concern was reinforced by the statement under torture made by captured American pilot Marcus McDilda that atomic bombs would be dropped on Tokyo and Kyoto in the next few days. That was their main concern therefore the atomic bomb was a primary reason they surrendered. The Soviets entry was also a primary factor, but it had to do with more than simply their military, though.
Although you did touch on this, I want to add some context. During the 1920s and early '30s, Japan was gripped by a series of leftist upheavals. Industrialization brought labor unions along with strikes and riots. The Japanese Communist Party formed in 1922. Anarcho-communist groups arose, such as the Black Youth League and the All-Japan Libertarian Federation of Labor Unions, both forming in 1926. The activities of these groups included murders, bombings, and other acts of terrorism, some of the more significant being the assassination of two prime ministers, Hara Takashi in 1921 and Osachi Hamaguchi in 1930 (although he survived nine months after being shot, he never fully recovered), and the attempted assassination of then Prince Regent Hirohito in 1923. During the American invasion of Luzon, Emperor Hirohito asked seven former prime ministers if he should continue the war. All counseled a continuation of the war, except one: Prince Fumimaro Konoe. He felt Japan should pursue a settlement because he feared that, if the war continued, it would result in a resurgence of the communism and anarchism that was suppressed a decade earlier. He drafted a memorandum for the emperor reiterating this a month later. After the Soviets entered the war, the greatest threat was not their military but the potential of them achieving a position where they could foment such movements in Japan. Much like the atomic bomb, this was also an existential threat to the divine lineage descended from the goddess Amaterasu. Both factors were of primary concern.
The desire to preserve the imperial throne is what led to the surrender. The unconditional surrender of Japan is a myth. There was a condition: Hirohito remained on the throne, albeit without his imperial prerogatives.
As for a worst case scenario if Japan had refused to surrender, you forget that the Japanese strategy at that point was Ketsu-Go. It was the kamikaze strategy that was supposed to break American resolve to continue fighting. Civilians were to be given sharpened bamboo spears with which to fight. Children were to be given explosive vests with which to take out tanks. In the opinion of Imperial Headquarters, "The only course left is for Japan's one hundred million people to sacrifice their lives by charging the enemy to make them lose the will to fight." Millions, if not tens of millions, of Japanese would have died in the invasion. The situation is even more nightmarish if the United States did have the atomic bomb and Japan still refused to surrender. There were no plans to drop any more atomic bombs after Nagasaki. America was producing around one atomic bomb a week. They intended to use them tactically to support Operation Olympic, by the launch of which, America would have had at least eight bombs stockpiled. Under those circumstances, American troops would have been invading a radioactive wasteland, and that would have increased American casualties due to radiation exposure.
Also, your assertion that the entire Kwantung Army, with a strength of 713,000 men, was completely destroyed by the Soviets in a couple of weeks is fallacious. The Soviets, who invaded August 9, did catch the Japanese by surprise and in the middle of a reorganization that would have lasted into September, and they were generally successful, however, they did meet stiff, if often futile, resistance. The Japanese plan, in the event of conflict with the Soviets, was to withdraw to the southeast, into Korea. At the time when the Japanese were ordered to cease fire, August 15, they had lost about 21,000 killed, 20,000 wounded, and 41,000 prisoners. Some Japanese units ignored the cease-fire order, but it did put an end to organized resistance, the withdraw to the southeast, or any chance of coordinating with Japanese forces in China. The Soviets, who were more interested in securing territory than anything, then bypassed these pockets of resistance and continued advancing until September 2. After hostilities officially ended, the Soviets took the surrender of 600,000 Japanese soldiers. Similarly, the United States took the surrender of 4.5 million Japanese soldiers at the same time. If we are working under your premise that the Japanese refused to surrender and fought bitterly, things would not have gone quite so quickly for the Russians, especially once they started outpacing their supply lines. The Japanese had about 1,125,000 undefeated soldiers in China, who were much better equipped than the Kwantung Army. Counting their troops in Indochina and the home islands, they still had 6,095,000 troops. Since we are looking at a worst case scenario, we'll look at the worst fear of American planners. They feared taking the Japanese home islands would not end the war. The Japanese government and a significant portion of their remaining military would then transfer to the mainland and continue the war in China. That outcome might have prolonged the duration of the war for years.
Still, this is better than a lot of the alternate history videos that RUclips seems so interested in recommending to me over the last few days. While I did have a few quibbles and felt you may have been missing some facts and/or context, I do feel this one was much more rational and realistic than the majority that I've seen.
The pilot was bluffing about Kyoto, but he wasn’t bluffing about Tokyo as it was later confirmed that we had one more bomb (not two which would have been an even bigger fear for the Japanese).
Also, you should have notes that the Japanese were about to conduct an operation that would have resulted in tens to hundreds of thousands of dead American civilians. The Japanese, confirmed by some Japanese submarine naval men, were about to drop bubonic plague infested fleas on San Diego.
Communists elements didn't show up in Japan until the U.S. occupation of Japan
@@howardbaxter2514 At that point in time there were effective treatments for bubonic plague both sulfa drugs and an antiplague serum. Also streptomycin was invented in 1943. The idea that plague would run wild in california was Japanese wishful thinking. Californians had dealt with plague 40 years earlier and knew about quaruntine procedures.
Curtis Shaw very well stated. I knew much but not nearly all of this, thank you. It bothers me that more people do not realize that the atomic bombings saved millions of lives. An invasion of Japan would have made America's WW2 experience *so much worse.* (And it would have been unimaginably ugly for the Japanese.)
The atomic bombs saved an estimated 1,000,000 Allied lives (mostly American) and 10,000,000 Japanese many of them civilians who would have been used in mass suicide waves
And usually when the military made casualty estimates they were usually wrong and the casualties usually ended up being much higher on both sides
We printed so many purple hearts planning for the invasion we're still using them today with hundreds of thousands left. We have so many spare that in iraq and Afghanistan field commanders have stockpiles to hand them out on the spot
The u.s could have never defeated germany or japan by itself. In each front there was like 15 countries.
I'd be surprised if the Americans even had a foothold, it would be like Omaha but in every landing zone.
Or they could've accepted the conditional surrender? Seems like the only thing the US got from the unconditional one was the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, which only lead to one actual conviction.
@Max Smith They pretty much got all of that anyway from the US to protect against communist influences in Japan (look up "America's favorite war criminal"), aside from Korea & Manchukuo which they had no chance of claiming anyway with the Soviets involved.
In other words, the Japanese Emporer knew death is a preferable alternative to communism and surrendered.
Agreed on both comments
Maybe or not. According to the book "Marching orders" by Bruce Lee about the breaking of the Japanese codes, the Japanese embassies and diplomats were constantly considering surrendering to the Russians rather than to the Americans. The reason was they thought they could get better terms from the Russians (clearly they missed the ruthlessness of the communists) than from the Americans, who were calling for "Unconditional Surrender" They didn't know what "unconditional surrender" would mean. Does it mean the murdering of the Emperor and his family? Murdering of all of the govt. leaders? Murdering of all of the military leaders-effectively all of the aristocracy? They would rather sacrifice all of the poor sucker Japanese than give up their power and possibly their lives. The protagonists of the surrender to Soviet Union camp completely missed the point of what the Soviets did to the Russian aristocracy, and to the Ukrainian people. The Emperor actually saved them by surrendering.
_Liberty Prime intensifies_
@@spleen5527 Lmao, what are you, a commie?
@@spleen5527 Gonna cry commie?
From what I've heard, the Emperor was pretty much put under house arrest for most of the war by his top military guys, who actually wanted the war and kept it going when they really shouldn't have, and the Emperor was only able to start trying to sue for peace after being rescued from house arrest by more loyal people. Naturally, the guys who locked up the Emperor and ignored his wishes to not fight with the US in the first place were not very popular.
We need to make a battlefield game bout this
Chong Marin plus the 20,000 Kamikaze planes that are coming down at you every day
Battlefield 2.5 operation: Attack the Anime
I get credit for the title EA
*Call of Duty: Weaboo Warfare*
But seriously, though, if Treyarch made a game based on this scenario, I'd so play it.
Alternate WW2 Battlefield would be epic. Needs to happen.
Jeffrey Firedman very true bro😂
Anime would've been made in English.
Maldives Ball or russian.... with communist undertones
The idea of communist anime just made me lol. thank you
aaron smith 👍
Maldives Ball it'll still be in Japanese because that's the language 98% of there population speak
the kawaii koala SHOW not if the U.S and Soviet Russia completely took over Japan.
I can already sense that moral Atomic Bomb debate in the comments
Superb Gamer no need this video makes all arguments invalid with the death tolls of invading one island alone
Superb Gamer naaa, other WW2 bombings operations took more lives
Shane Sansom apparently you missed the part where the soviets did more than the nukes. But whatever
was it moral?, no was it the right thing to do yes a invasion of Japan would have cost many more lives than the atomic bombs
Shane Sansom cody himself was also critical of the numbers and motives of the makers of those estimates. Max. casualties was over double the amount what US lost in real WW2? Clearly BS, that min. is more realistic. Estimates were most likely made by the military and its generals clearly wanted to test new technology and drop some nukes.
In school we were taught that there was an option to invade Japan but that would have cost millions of lives and prolonged it to the 50's.
Kinda weird to think my grandpa who was too young to fight in ww2 might’ve had the chance to partake in the invasion of Japan if the war lasted a few years longer
E
One point to make. If the US had invaded Japan the Imperial Army had orders to kill all POWs. This would have infuriated the US and the Western Allies even more, probably leading to much more suppression of the Japanese Home Islands after the War. Even if the Soviets never endered Japan (Which I am not sure they would do to be honest-their interest was in Manchuria and Korea) it would have caused a massive strain in US and Japanese relations for at least 40 years after the war.
Probably end up with America going: we had a choice of invasion and two nukes. Now I'm gonna make it as many nukes to flatten your country
Quick correction, the Kill All Prisoners Order was given and had started to be implemented, it wasn't conditional on the invasion of Japan. I'm with Caleb Shirey in believing that if there hadn't been a successful surrender the invasion would have been a genocide due to the civilian will to resist and the nuclear bomb production pipeline. Especially since no one yet knew about the ecological problems of nuclear weapons (to be fair they produce less radiation than thermonuclear weapons so re-habitation is possible, though sending solders through the fallout as was planned would have been devastating to the babyboomers).
Also the Japanese had been saving up their kamikazes for homeland defense near the end of the war.
@@Captain1nsaneo Thermonuclear weapons produce less radiation. Thermonuclear weapons are nuclear bombs with hydrogen next to it. The nuclear bomb is so hot that when it ignites the hydrogen it doesn't just explode, it actually fuses like a star, producing even more energy than the nuclear bomb.
The area of destruction of a thermonuclear weapon is so large that there would be negligible radiation sickness. Anyone that could have got radiation sickness would already burn to death. With Hiroshima the nuclear bomb is small (by nuclear comparison) thus the range of burning to death is smaller than the range of suffering from radiation.
A Hiroshima bomb dropped on New York would burn up a few city streets, everything inside and kill 100k+. A Russian thermonuclear bomb from a missile would wipe out the entire city.
@@malaysabolehpsy Well you've made me doubt my knowledge on the radiological characteristics of nuclear vs thermo. Time to check google.
(a 23 page article later)
I didn't know about the mach wave. Cool.
Turns out we're both wrong on how much radiation nukes produce per kiloton. The nuclear radiation is roughly 15% of the yield for both nuclear and thermonuclear. But differences in individual bomb design will change the kind of leftover material.
The area is subject to the square-cube law, a thermonuclear bomb of 1 megaton would have a larger volume but 10 100 kiloton nuclear bombs would have a larger foot print (thus MIRVs). Also weather and the shape of the land will have a large affect on contamination.
Ya well, Japan you'd still play the victim
Make some massive assumptions for this, the USSR never had the transportation capacity to invade the Home Islands.
Yeah. I was sitting here asking myself that question. The Russians didn't have the logistics to attempt an amphibious landing. And the US wasn't willing to give them landing craft. The Russians would've swept SE Asia of Japanese forces. But that doesn't change much from our timeline in where the boundaries are drawn.
@@shawngillogly6873 which oddly wouldn't actually change the timeline dramatically since most of Asia ended up under Soviet or PRC influence anyway
True true, but however terrible their naval power was, the Japanese navy was still decimated, with US forces likely not in the North, so they would still be able to take some northern Japanese islands
Even the aforementioned invasion of Manchuria depended on American ships supplying them through Vladivostok to build up supplies since the Trans Siberian railroad wasn't enough to sustain such a large army (Japan didn't attack American ships bound for USSR till USSR invaded).
If the Invasion of Japanese occupied lands continued, Soviets would struggle to just feed their army much less conduct one of the largest amphibious operations in history.
Soviets had less than 600 vessels active by 1945, many were Lend Lease, a third were subs. The Reds actually invaded some small outer islands of Japan, forgot the names but half of their transports were from the Lend Lease program. So yeah itd take alteast by 1946-7 for them to build up a Navy good enough for setting foot in Japan.
What would happen:
My grandpa probably would've died and my dad wouldn't have been born. And since my dad hasn't been born, I wouldn't be here.
Me too
Oxi Clean same
Oxi Clean nope you'll just have another dad since your mother married someone else
Oxi Clean good, I prefer Oxi Moron.
if japan could hold out for a few years...
and somehow magically survive a russian invasion/blockade...
then ya your grandpa could'va died. thought highly unlikely seeing before the end of the war japan's government was already losing grip and could've easily been knocked over by high respecting admirals that survived.
hell the emperor could've done it. it was that he was kepted in the dark for the whole war...
My great uncle was a Marine who fought in 6 of the major island hopping operations. Although he was advanced in years when I became old enough to interact with him in a meaningful way, he appeared to me to be very tough and incredible strong physically (though he walked with a pronounced limp due to the severe injury that finally ended his military career). Even as a youngster I was interested in history and in WW2 in particular. Upon learning of his enlistment, I began to gravitate towards him at family functions and visits. I loved being around him. He was generally jovial and gregarious.
He never talked about the war. I so wanted to hear and learn about his life that when I was about 10 years old I managed to get myself and my brother invited to his house for the evening. Once the conversation turned to WW2 (sparked by me) the evening took a very dark turn that I can only describe as chilling. The subject came around in some way to Japan at that time, something about all the Japanese imports that Americans bought, from cars to transistor radios. His whole demeanor began to change and his face, which usually seemed cheerful, seemed to blaze with anger. I knew in no uncertain terms that he absolutely hated Japan and the Japanese people. The stories he told me about his experiences kept me up all night. The war no longer seemed adventurous and heroic. He loathed the enemy and pledged to hate the Japanese till the day he died.
I can only say that the stories he told me about the behavior of the Japanese during the war made me understand where all this hate came from.... and also why he never wanted to talk about his days as a US Marine.
This is the part "average people" who want to argue about how "terrible" the US using atom bombs on Japan can never know or understand. It was DEFINITELY a different time and place! Later! OL J R :)
Japanese were pure savage barbarians during imperial japan. Your grandpa probably saw some serious fucking shit and I dont blame him whatsoever
Japan was a different breed of enemy. Something that's often overlooked is that they were racially supremacist like the nazis and basically viewed everyone except the Japanese as being subhuman, which is why they were so cruel and savage even towards civilians in the regions that they occupied. They were signatories to the Geneva convention but this was meaningless because apparently they weren't present or something for when the actual rules were agreed upon, so Japan never abided by this. PoWs were starved, forced to work grueling labor, frequently executed, tortured, experimented on, and even often cannibalized. The exceptional savagery of the Japanese can be seen across the Pacific theater during the course of the whole war, most notably during the rape of Nanking and Unit 731, where they conducted some of the most inhumane experiments and research ever. They were fierce, relentless enemies and their crazed battlefield antics terrified the Americans. All of this combined with just old timey American racism really bred a deep hatred for the Japanese by many American soldiers for the rest of their lives.
Had Japan not surrenders, General Curtis Lemay stated he was fully prepared to drop a nuke a week until Japan either surrendered or was totally flattened.
They couldn't build them that fast. It was a bluff.
Wrong dumbass, Lemay never bluffed, & anything can be mass produced, including nukes.
A) This scenario takes nukes away. B) It was very much a bluff. The US was making 2 to 3 bombs per month at the time. So by the start of the invasion, the US would have about 14 to 20 bombs, assuming Project Manhattan couldn't deliver a bomb before August. If we go by the Operation Coronet date, at a rate of one nuke per week, you run out of nukes by roughly mid-May of 1946. If you go by Operation Olympic, then about mid-January of 1946. A nuke per month or two is certainly doable. Hell, three could give you about a bit over 5 months, 6, maybe even 7 months But one per week is just an exaggeration.
Sphinx Rising HOLY FUCK
did you mean: ｇｅｎｏｃｉｄｅ?
When you said "war is messy", I was hoping you were going to say "War never changes"
I'm glad he didn't. Over used as fuck and a cliche at this point.
Generals during WW1 found out the hard way that it does.
Cody, I feel like you're overexaggerating how willing Japan was to surrender. That initial offer to surrender was incredibly suspicious and there was absolutely no indication it would be accepted by the Japanese government/monarchy.
I'd also question your view that the Soviets were the main reason for the surrender, as it isn't really one supported by mainstream historians and mostly exists as a contrarian viewpoint. Keep in mind the USSR had no real way to organise a widespread amphibious invasion within any reasonable timeframe.
Yeah, the Western Allies were the only ones who had significant experience with naval invasions. Even that might be lacking.
I disagree Snarky, the Allies had to fail horribly (Dieppe) before they learned how to effectively conduct amphibious landings.
+Snarky Edmonton Cyclist It's not just about having the equipment, like transports or LSTs. It's about having the knowledge and experience to use them. The US had been fighting amphibious warfare for years up to that point, and the Soviets to my knowledge had pretty much zero practical experience in amphibious warfare, or even transporting large quantities of troops and supplies over massive bodies of water. The Soviets would have been able to deal tremendous damage to Japan's holdings in China/Korea, but I doubt they could seriously have threatened the Japanese home islands.
Actually, they invaded the Southern Kuril Islands just north of Hokkaido and they could have conceivably taken Hokkaido, even if it's unlikely they would get to Tokyo before the Americans invaded or the government surrendered.
Mr.Science Dieppe was a fortnight after Operation Shoe String. The Allies already knew how to launch amphibious assaults. Dieppe just demonstrated what happens when you don't use paratroopers, heavy bombers, and battleships and heavy cruisers to give fire support, all of which were what the Canadian commander asked for, and was refused.
I would love to see this video redone with the updated information about the Soviet inability to threaten the Japanese home islands. The Soviet angle is often stressed too much considering their actual capabilities. The remains of the IJN alone was many many times more powerful than anything the USSR could put into the Pacific waters.
Especially if you consider the Russo-Japanese War just a couple decades earlier, in which Japan more or less kicked Russia's ass (though to be far, Russia was dealing with an incompetent leader at the time, and Japan would have been getting invaded by the US in the imaginary scenario, which would complicate things)
But during operation downfall, the US Navy would be attacking the Japanese navy, and likely leaving it decimated.. if not completely destroyed, allowing the Russians to use their smaller navy to easily reach Japan
Provide evidence please? Because this sounds incredibly sketchy
@@TheOther19 I doubt espaclly after fall of Berlin that the us would allow any Soivet fleeet to get to japan
@@TheOther19 They didn't have a Pacific navy in 1945
I'm loving the spike in production quality.
Here's a suggestion for a video, Cody: What if the Soviet Union never collapsed?
Irs already done
KillerFrank Ew.
The rest of the world would roflstomp them.
jason pantano the fact that you unironically used the phrase "roflstomp" alone is enough to gulag you.
but i didnt
tera did....
British and Australians (Completely skips Canadians)
and NZ and India and such
But tbch he just said British and Australians to be shorter.
actually the australians would be called the ANZACs (Australian & New Zealand Army Corps) because we like our sister (idk wether they are our sister country but hey i'd like to think it is) country New Zealand and would've teamed up with them
Yeah, NZ and Aus probably would've fought together.
A 3 division Commonwealth Corps with a Canadian, Australian and British division was being organized for Coronet. The Far East Fleet was to be reinforced by up to 6 more carriers, with escorts from the RCN, RAN, and RNZN. A force of 22 heavy bomber squadrons, 10 of them the RCAF 6th Bomb Group, and a Tactical Air Force built around the RAAF was planned, too.
Imagine the guys who marched to Berlin, then getting shipped to the Pacific to invade Japan. Some of those units were already on their way. Ask them about the bombs.
Pro Football Hall of Fame DL Art Donovan was a shipboard Marine for most of the war. He was transfered off the ship to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
Good video, but there is a historical inaccuracy, Manchuria would not become a puppet regime, but handled back to the China, or most likely the People's Republic of China.
Like North Korea was handed back as long as it was communist.
John Smith
Yep , USSR did used Manchuria to aid PRC after the occupation of Manchuria, and it is real history, not Alternate.
@@bosunbill9059 No, they basically pillaged all the industrial machinery from Manchuria before giving it back to the Chinese.
Proof? Regardless it was handed back to the Chinese nevertheless. Plus Advisors and Military Equipment (even if its Old Japanese Crap) was given and PRC remained Independent instead of Puppet like the Eastern European Nations.
@@bosunbill9059 Here's your proof.
web.archive.org/web/20131219040912/oudl.osmania.ac.in/bitstream/handle/OUDL/13712/216873_Manchuria_Since_1931.pdf?sequence=2
pages 227-228. Statistics on the next few pages.
The Zimmerman telegraph please. Talk about if Mexico joined with the central powers in WW1
Alyosha Romanov the war started with a number of fishy incidents
Alyosha Romanov yes, but like this video, it would be interesting to see how things play out. American controlled Mexico (due to imperialism) could definitely be a cool theory.
Mexico wasn't suicidal. If they had been occupied by the U.S., or even conquered Mexico would be a much better place then it is now.
Shiku Bah I really want to theory based on this. It could go good with the Germany winning the First World War part two. As maybe a side theory.
*+Meme Maker* I am really glad that im not the only one who wants to see that scenario.
I saw 40k reference
Cody you really are one of my fave youtubers
Nathanx2000 for the emperor my brother(salutes Aquila)
James.T .Adams
Beware The alien
The mutant
THE HERETIC!!!!
DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!!!!!
Data Wargaming lol
Much 40k
Such bloodshed
My grandpa had just enlisted in the army (due to age restrictions) a month before they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He would have been a part of Operation Downfall had it occurred. A very green private storming a beach of the Japanese mainland... There is a decent chance he would have died in Japan, and I wouldn't be typing this right now. This is the first alternate history video I've watched that could have directly affected the probability of my existence. The feeling it gives me is...chilling.
Here is a video suggestion Cody:
What if the Great Depression never happened?
What if the great depression got so bad, especially in the midwest, that an actual communist uprising took over America? It was a genuine worry, especially among the migrant workers.
you'd end up seeing the American Nazi Party and the Communist Party draining votes from the 'traditional' political left/right.
Now imagine the absolute gonzo batshit idea of Trotsky as an american political figure.
umm, WWII would've never taken place. or that it would be mainly germany against russia.
seeing germany and the west really hated russia.
The one were in now? XD
RandomTopic Teen like it
what if France turned communist before they banned communism in 1939?
+Joshua Rathbun
Soviet-French alliance => if Germany invades one, it gets destroyed by the other.
The Communists in France were not as eager to roll over and die like the OTL's leadership of the Republic did.
Joshua Rathbun
They wouldn't ban communism. Done.
France loves socialism, it wouldn't ban communism. It's still a wonder why they haven't gone fully socialist like Venezuela.
No topless beaches or decent food, so....
Because France is a mixed Government and unlike Venezuela, France has a economy that's works. Plus look at the Nordic Countries or Europe Union member states for example.
An outstanding theory Cody! I liked the way you addressed the topic with such professionalism and also addressed the role of the USSR in Japan's surrender, which is sth that is left largely untouched in much of modern media when discussing the final days of the Pacific front.
Also, the animations were outstanding, really good job on that! I think they maybe repeated themselves a bit too often in some places, but they were very much welcomed. They were worth the wait for the video :D
Good luck with future videos!
Well at this time people had heard about the Rape of Europe, the slaughter of the Nazis during the battle of Berlin. They were honestly scared of the Soviets and I really can't blame them. When you read up on some of the atrocities the Soviets committed during World War 2 you see why the Japanese surrendered, the threat of a bomb that flash boils a persons flesh doesn't help much either.
FullMontyUK Japan embarrassed the Russians in 1905 so I am sure Russia would have loved to best and dominate Japan. Also I doubt the Japanese would want a foreign gov't ruling over them with political officers appointed to see that the party's ideology is carried out.
The rape of Europe happened because the Nazis raped their way and burned their way and executed their way across Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. It wasn't something that the Soviets just decided to do. You want to talk about war crimes, talk about the 20 million soldiers and 10 million civilians dead as a result of the Nazi invasion. Deaths Hitler is responsible for, and deaths that fueled the the anger and hatred of the Soviet people.
You talk about these atrocities as if it were on a whim. They weren't and when the Soviets made it to Konigsberg, the soldiers were baffled as to why the Germans invaded their country when they saw how nice it was on the other side of Europe.
You want to talk about Rape of Europe look at Adolph Hitler with a collective of millions more Europeans dead as a direct result of his egotism.
I'm not saying that they were on a whim, I'm saying that the Soviets would associate what happened to them in Belarus and Ukraine and show a similar kind of brutality to the closest friends of the Nazis, the Japanese. Even if they wouldn't, exaggerated versions of what happened to the Nazis when the soviets invaded would have been heard by the Japanese that would make them scared. The same reason why America would fear the Soviets, well, that and their nukes.
Yeah, you are right people mostly feared the communist ideology, there wasn't much of a threat of a Rape of Japan but Japan still would get rekt by the Soviets either way.
0:54 as soon as I heard him say war I thought he was going to drop a “war never changes”
right
Same
damn right
War, war never changes
One thing you forgot was that there was a big hurricane in Japan at the same time that the invasion was planned for. That would've created a whole other set of events.
Ik you cant invade during bad weather but if they actually invaded that would be the worst battle in history
Operation Olympic would never have happened anyway. Had the Japanese not surrendered when they did, Admiral Nimitz was going to go on record as being against the invasion of Kyushu due to intel reports showing that the strength of the Japanese defenders had been grossly underestimated. And he would have been backed by Admiral King. That would have been enough for President Truman to cancel the operation no matter how hard MacArthur protested. Had Olympic proceeded anyway, it would have been an absolute bloodbath for both sides. Olympic had been planned with a 3 to 1 numerical superiority. In reality, there were 1,000,000 Japanese soldiers and well over a million civilians ready to meet 1,000,000 Americans. And there were about 10,000 kamikazes that would have been much harder to shoot down than the ones over Okinawa, which saw about 3500 kamikazes attack the fleet there, as they would be flying low over the island and wouldn't be detected until they reached the fleet.
@@AlaskaErik Very much underestimated. If someone won't surrender after two nuclear bombs they won't surrender. Case in point, every nuclear armed country now. The only option then is total wipeout. Which is the MAD principle: there are enough nukes to totally wipe out US and Russia and possibly the world.
So pretty much Japan turns into Korea..
North Japan...staring "Rocket Man"
North Japan vs. South Japan in the "Japanese Wars."...
Even scarier thought, Japanese Kim Jong...
@Brian O'Kongkohr oh no that's losing anime hentai and K-pop two in one
No. The Soviets didn't have the capability to land a large enough force on Japan to even take Hokkaido. They struggled to take Sakhalin even, which was defended by little more than an under strength division
@@michelangelobuonarroti4958 may be you've read something smart, but soviets not having resources,abilities or insistence for war in 1945 doesn't sound convimcing
I always hear people say that "the bombs were a mistake" or "im sure there was a better way" then i explain to them that there was another way OPERATION DOWNFALL. and i tell them that *ALOT* more people would have died if the bombs were not droped and we invaded instead. Now i can just show them a video instead of wasting my breath : )
off colored Except this video basically also implies that even without the bombs, Japan likely would still surrender anyway, due to the Soviet declaration of war HEAVILY OUTWEIGHING the atombic bombs.
Not to mention how Japan was actually willing to surrender before then, but on the condition that they got to keep their emperor. The United States could have simply accepted that, given that they ultimately let them keep their emperor anyway.
Parker Hetzel What exactly are you trying to say?
Parker Hetzel So basically you are disagreeing with my initial statement then, that Japan likely would have surrendered even if that atomic bombs had not dropped.
Parker Hetzel The first thing you should understand though is that Japan actually was thinking about surrendering before the atomic bombs were dropped, but under the condition that they got to keep their emperor. Looking back on it now, the United States could have just accepted that offer, given how they ultimately Japan keep their emperor anyway. That is all I have time to type right now. I will get back to you later and finish my response.
Parker Hetzel Did you even pay attention to my comment? It sounds to me like you did not.
When I was stationed on Guam, I got involved with a woman from Saipan. When we were up visiting her family, she showed me all kinds of stuff from the war. One of the things that stuck with me was Suicide Cliffs, and Banzai Bluffs. After being ordered by the General, the men took their families to Suicide Cliffs and threw them into the ocean. The General believed the soldiers would be more focused without being distracted by family, and so would fight harder. Imagine that the whole length of Japan.
Suicide Cliffs sounds much better than Murder Cliffs.
“The General believed the soldiers would be more focused without being distracted by family, so they had the soldiers push them in the ocean.”
What. The. Fuck.
" oh hey im so glad my wife can swim"
- some japanese dude
Wasn't it this particular cliff that Japanese soldiers and citizen jumped off in order to avoid capture from American troops.
@@Hitoshuratdn yes
Japan: Surrender is not in our code!
America: Time for you to change your code.
This should be a movie.
Opening text "in 1945, in order to end the war. The US dropped two atomic bombs, Heroshima and Nagasaki... ... ... ... ... ... but what if they hadn't?"
(Opening scene is Okinawa)
after watching the entire video I would not mind a Movie or a TV series on Operation Downfall I think it would be interesting to see how WW2 could have really turned out to be and of course, it would be extremely dark and tragic 😔
I read a pretty good novel about an invasion of Japan maybe 30 years ago, and IIRC it was called "Olympic." This makes me want to read it again but I'm sure it's out of print and I'm not even sure that's the right title. But it would've made a good movie.
there’s literally a movie called “Downfall” based on WW2 made like 10 years ago.
what if japan never bombed pearl harbor?
Still would've ended up in war with US due to running out of oil & needing to invade more land to get said oil.
despairedboy stupid comment...
+despairedboy that wasn't a problem back in WW2. It only became one now because the Middle East turned into a hellhole and everyone started killing each other over religion. Realistically the US probably would have got involved to protect financial interests in china, but not on as large scale as we did historically.
kittensofdeath then the axis would have probl
American Patriot your joking right do you really think the US would join the nazis who killed many of their people and Britains Canada's and polands join the Italians and Germans?
as an australian i just want to say how much joy your drawing of the american character makes me, its literally perfect please never change it
if the bombs were never dropped i wouldent get to see my anime
sonicx7410 that's actually true since one of the main anime films that lead to its popularity in the west was related to the idea of nuclear weapons and things.
i was talking about my NARUTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
anime, but yea sure that too
but NARUTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
sonicx7410
We shouldve dropped more
ATTACK ON TIT!
Hey Cody I got a suggestion:
What if Germany never invaded Russia and Russia became part of the Axis not the Allies
BlackbeardGaming that's too weird after all Germany vs soviet union was the main point for the war for hitler, its more likely the UK joins germany and fights the Soviets since they were both anticommunists
BlackbeardGaming it kinda happened for a while due to the devil's pact
devil's pact?
The war would've lasted until about 1950. 100+ million people would die, nukes would be spammed, and the war would end in more of stalemate than victory.
BlackbeardGaming hitler and stalin signed an agreement to not attack eachother. Thus technically making russia an axis power for a while.
What if Thelegend27 had his hero captured?
MrMosbyOfficial VEVO
Well, lets assume it happens today from the time this comment was made. America would become demilitarized since they rely on the hero. Russian forces would invade the USA and so would China. Disputes on the land will be made and some Russo-Chinese war can happen. Meanwhile, Europe is in anarchy since the USA had collapsed and Russia is getting lots of power, which leads to NATO being disbanded. Assuming Russia does get the entire USA with nuclear bomb threats, it would invade all Non-EU members in Europe and become the major superpower. This will lead to a probable cause of World War 3 as Russia vs the rest of the world. It will lead to nukes and Russia will have over 90% of the nukes. The thing is, France will have the 2nd most nukes. So it'd be a nuclear war and in the end everyone will have to die due to the immense nuclear arsenal Russia will have and the amount of nukes France and the rest will have combined.
...what are you smoking
MrMosbyOfficial VEVO it's impossible to catch the legend 27s hero
unless they start running in the lobby
Impossible.
But it's fun to theorize
Space Face Me? I smoked some smarties
What two things that get lost to history. 1) More Japanese civilians died in fire bombings than both nuclear bomb drops. This was due to most Japanese buildings were made of wood. 2) After the Japanese surrender thousands died from famine for years afterwards. General MacArthur told the chiefs he needed food or bullets when he took over Japan as Supreme Commander because that was how bad it was. He would have to fight a massive starving riot from the civilian population or allow him to feed them. They released tons of food that ironically was being stock piled for the invasion. Now add another 6 months to 1 year of bombing and invading and the nation might have collapsed into a 3rd world nation or worse.
The one thing that makes no sense is I don't see how the Soviets could invade Japan. They had almost no navy and you would need a force the size of D-Day. They had to build up that force and had zero experience. Not that Soviet doctrine gave two shits about their men. I suspect the war would have been over before the Soviets even were close to ready.
Fucking with the wait man, great content as always and loving the animations.
Worth*
Joseph Stalin happy birthday
dafuq...
Just wait till 420 yo!
*doesn`t know how to communist* uhh....power to the working class?..
Actually my grandmother and grandfather told me that Mexican Army was going to join the American Army invading Japan they send a couple squadrons to the Philippines two assists and translating from Spanish to English but more importantly Mexico is going to invade Japan they wanted a piece of the action they just got into the war a little bit too late and there were training and drilling an invasion tactics on Mexican Islands to invade Japan crazy
Sergio Bocanegra tell me more
My grandfather was one of those people. He joined the US army as a mexican and went to Japan during the war.
Well that was retarded from the Mexican goverment
Well the Mexicans had no choice the Axis powers sunk a few Mexican vessels in the Gulf of Mexico
After the axis sunk Mexican ships they sent a plane squadron named the Aztec eagles to help the us. Most of the support where supplies sent to the us.
I'd love to have a video game made about this scenario.
Ace Nine that'd be pretty cool. dark & gritty, but not in a generic way like a lot of modern games about war.
Ace Nine how about one where Japan invades the US?
Ace Nine They did make a game where that happened called "Ring of Red"
9:17 with what navy? The Soviets dont have any ships and what few boats they can cobble together aren't getting past the US Pacific fleet
@Reunite The British Empire Their navy was horribly outdated and could've been outbeat by literally any Navy. The Japanese or even the Americans would've taken them down quickly.
@Reunite The British Empire from Wikipedia "By August 1945, the Pacific Fleet consisted of two cruisers, one destroyer leader, ten destroyers, two torpedo boats, 19 patrol boats, 78 submarines, ten minelayers, 52 minesweepers, 49 "MO" anti-submarine boats (MO stands for Малый Охотник, or "little hunter"), 204 motor torpedo boats and 1459 war planes." So as i said before the Soviets didnt have a sizable navy in the Pacific, go back to warthunder you stupid tankie
@@AppleGhostCat they had almost no ships in the Pacific, hes wrong. He probably gets his historical information from video games or some shit.
@Reunite The British Empire cool insult bro, do you want to address my citation and how it proves you wrong now? The Soviets had no surface fleet in the Pacific and they were not capable of invading japan especially with the us navy in the way. Do you have any clue how logistically difficult amphibious invasions were in the second world war? There's a reason the American, British, and Japanese navys (which which were the finest in the world at the time) all struggled with it, compared to them the soviet sailors were a bunch of amateurs at best, especially since stalin purged most of the soviet navys leadership in the 30s. don't even get me started about how woefully obsolete most of the russian ships were, alot of them predated the first world war.
Oh by the way the fact that you are suggesting that the Soviet airforce could somehow be used to bring soldiers into japan is more evidence that you have no clue what you are talking about, the soviets had no experience with successful large scale vertical insertion and one time they tried in the war they lost (at Bryansk). This was at a time when the entire idea of it was still in its infancy and the Soviets were not capable of pulling it off.
Reunite The British Empire
You must be adept at debates if you try to wither away at your opponent by insulting them in arbitrary evidence to confirm why you dont need to debate them
1:07 that map looks horrific
*C O M M U N I S M H A S G O N E T O O F A R*
Eh it isent that ba- WAIT A SECOND YOUR RIGHT WHERE TF IS THE BLACK SEA IS THIS A CURSED HOI4 MOD BECAUSE I NEED TO SEE ISORROWS SUFFER
BlackSea.exe has stopped working.
What if something happened
I am happy this is a public comment. The Japanese detonated their own nuke in Konan, North Korea, not long after we detonated our bombs. If our bombs never had worked, theirs might have. In a sub, detonated under our invasion fleet, well you have seen the photos of our Pacific Island tests. Check it out. National Geographic did a special on it. We were in a nuclear arms race and did not know it. If we had not ended the war (saving millions of lives) they might have sent a sub into SanFransisco and blown it up in the Bay! That would give us pause and changed the course of the war. The Russians would have invaded, captured the Japanese facility and had the bomb before we did! There's a thought. Hope he makes a "What If" out of that idea.
Don Shively
ok
Don Shively What the fuck
ok then somethin would happen
ok what if green hair was natural
What if the Belgian revolution of 1799 succeeded? What if the Ottomans won the siege of Vienna? What if the battle of the Dardanelles was a British victory? What if Japan never declared war on the US in ww2?
And finally, what if the sunset invasion occurred?
Think he did one on the Ottoman empire never falling. But most agree it would have fallen even if it survived WW1. Most power houses wanted it's oil.
Leurquin François What if the U.S joined the the central powers in ww1 & surprising enough most Americans wanted to join the Central powers instead of the Allies ...
Imagine having a North and South Japan
The nightmare of weebs
In another universe: “Imagine having a North and South Korea”
I see you everywhere
Near to become like Korean war or Vietnam War.
Remember, during the Warring States era, the time of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, so many died of civil wars.
Just like that.
I'm not convinced North and South Japan would have a "Japanese War", like Korea and Vietnam. Both Korea and Vietnam have had a long history of fighting foreign occupiers before the US entered the picture. Freeing their brothers from "imperial colonizers" was one of the main reasons the Korean and Vietnam war happened. It wasn't China or Russia that pushed North Korea and North Vietnam into war, it was their own people seeking foreign help for a "war of liberation and independence"
Since Japan has never been occupied, I think it would look more like West & East Germany. Peaceful yet bitter.
My father was in the Army at this time. He often said he and his buddies all knew they were going to be part of the invasion force in Japan, with death very likely. I've always said that I owe my life to the atomic bomb. It's worth remembering that we had to drop two bombs before the Emperor surrendered. Even then, he had to thwart a palace coup to do it.
We made a million Purple Hearts in preparations of the massive casualties faced for Operation Downfall. To this day US armed forces are still handing out these Purple Hearts to our servicemen and women
Thomas D Possibly a stupid question, but what's a purple heart?
It's a military decoration that is given to people that have been wounded or killed in war.
MrRikersBeard Yeah so just think for a second, the US estimated that 1 million soldiers would either die or be wounded in an invasion of Japan.
Thomas D Nukes suddenly sound like a better option
If she was in some way wounded by enemy action.
The mindset of the Japanese people from this period in such an event is truly frightening.
You know if you kind of think about it, the mindset of the Japanese Empire is actually kind of similar to the fictional Imperium of Mankind of Warhammer 40K.
TheNorth15 I like the fact that Cody had caught on to that fact if the Space Marines at 2:41 were anything to go by.
NordicNostalgia Well too be honest i thought many countries during ww 2 had a frightening mind set, even some western too
Johan Aanvik yeah, pretty much every mindset from every country who fought in world war 2 is different to the same countries that exist today, maybe the country still closest to their countries mindset in ww2 is russia
Japan reached new heights. They were different in that unlike other countries, their mindset were less driven by the government and politics by comparison. Their fighting spirit are cultural.
Love that nod to 40k with the “False
Emperor” thing 😂👍
6 months to invade Japan?
Pfft, give me 6 HoI4 paratroopers and it'll be done in one at the most.
japan has more resistance then the UK fam but i guess so
i invaded the USA with a few divisions as soviet union
huffpuff1337 or the russians will use their speed hacks and cs go players
We would've cured the world of anime
Jet X - nooooooo. I need dragonball z
Jet X But ma pokemans.
Edgy.
Jet X I wouldn't hear about fucking Katanas all the time!
But meh attack on tit
No way this would be swift. I don't think they would have surrendered... Ever. It's impressive to have that level of unity
They would never have surrendered even though they did? Your logic is dumb
foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/
@@spleen5527 The soviet union didn't cause the Japanese to surrender, the emperor realised the nation was runing out of supplies, and more fighting would cause a revolution.
@@spleen5527 The Germans basically fought until there was no Nazi territory left. Japan would probably jave done the same, as I think the Japanese devotion to the Emperor was greater than the German's was to Hitler. Atomic bombs were a new weapon that broke even the military's willpower and hopes to bleed America white.
My father was a 1942 Bataan Death march survivor. In 1945 he was recalled to active duty with the Philippine army. He told me that if the Atom bomb did not end the war then I would have never been born (I was born after the war). He explained that he and his comrades were preparing for Operation Downfall in 1945 and they actually looked forward to it. Many of them were Death march survivors and they all had a personal grudge with the Japanese. He did not care if it was going to be a one way trip and all his comrades felt the same way. They were all planning to raise absolute havoc regardless of consequences. The atrocities the Japanese did in the Philippines further justified what they had in mind. Did you know a similar contingent was also being prepared in China. The Chinese had an even bigger axe to grind with the Japanese. Imagine what legions of vindictive maniacs would have done in Japan. The anti-Bomb activists of today live in an alternate reality to say that the bomb was cruel and should have never been used.
My Dad was a marine with the First Marine division. He fought at Peleiu and Okinawa. He never shared much about his experiences, but did share how when he was on Okinawa preparing to invade Japan. One night in August while his outfit was a watching a movie in the rain, gunfire erupted from the naval ships offshore. A radio operator ran up and interrupted the movie. He shouted: "It's Over! The War is Over!" My dad and his fellow marines went nuts, throwing chairs, screaming and crying with relief. A few even punched each other. The ships offshore were shooting in celebration. If that makes me biased for favoring the atomic bombing of Japan, so be it.
An excellent fictional book on a hypothetical invasion of Japan is the 1970 novel"Lighter Than a Feather" by Davd Westheimer. While fiction, it is extremely well researched and gives a pretty good idea how the invasion would go down, as seen by the POV of the books' many characters from both sides. I highly recommend it.
Thanks, I will give it a look.
Oh but remember the nukes were bad because people dieeeeed.
Who needs the Black sea am i right?
what do you mean ? Black sea is nearly on the other side of the globe
@@dimitar5734 Look at 6:28 he forgot the Black sea
@@mug1337 🤣🤣🤣
@@mug1337 lol
I was looking for this comment
it's weird to think that nukes saved Japanese lives
Spyder And a Soviet invasion
Why? They wheren even the worst bombing the japanese had to suffer.
It was the most horrific bombing and that is what people don't understand. Many of the men involved with the Manhattan project killed themselves after they saw pictures of what the bombs did, black and white pictures. The bombs flash boiled human flesh, killed children and destroyed schools. This wasn't the most deadly bombing Japan had withstood, it was the most gruesome.
what's your source on researchers on the Manhattan project killing themselves? Metal Gear Solid? Most of the major scientists and minor ones like Feynman seemed to live the rest of their lives just fine.
Nobody on the MH project killed themselves.
The dude forgot to draw the Black Sea lol
Lol yeah
what if America invaded Japan but there came the divine wind?
Juls Bern I've named my cat Kamikazi just for that reason. She's like a divine wind.
The Kamikaze hadn't done much to prevent US advance during the Pacific War. They wouldn't have done much to prevent US conquest of Japan either.
If you mean the massive hurricane destroying their fleet like ht it hit so many mongol invaders. That would mean the US had no ability to detect storms.
lastwolflord I believe he means Kamikaze(s) as that means divine wind
I laughed so hard for some reason !!
6:30
Yes, because Russians are renown for their ability to swim and perform amphibious assaults.
/sarc.
@Nazx 36 nothing stopping them except the lack of ships for themselves to move...
@mr_ anheuser Dude the only one embarrassing themselves here is you. The Russians had no fucking Navy, and he's right, the Japanese weren't even remotely focused on the Soviets. They were mentioned for precisely the reasons he listed in his comment above. As for your remarks about material and numerical advantages??? We fucking invaded them by sea you absolute lemming. They had the numbers.
@mr_ anheuser As for "cringe" your last comment is about as cringeworthy as it gets.
@Nobody Knows The Soviets did have a navy and while it alone was not strong enough to challange the IJN, the US navy already destroyed them enough to not pose a major threat. The Soviets had already taken the Kuril islands by naval landings and Southern-Sakhalin was also recaptured. It would not have been too hard for the Soviets to send troups from Sakhalin to Hokkaido as the Soviet Airforce would pose too much of a threat for the IJN to intercept them.
A Soviet invasion of the mainland would have been a dissaster for Japan as the weakend IJA would be outclassed by the mechanized Soviet Red Army and not be capable of putting up a succesfull defense.
Claiming that Japan did not fear the Soviets and played no significant role in the surrender of Japan is just wrong. The big reason Japan went after America was because of their fear of the Soviet-Union following the borderconflicts of 1939 which the Soviets won. As well as the fear that capitualtion to the Soviets would end with the abolishment of the empire and replacement with a communist republic.
It was also the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that played a major role in the final Japanese surrender as the Chinese front collapsed and a major portion of their forces was cut off from Japan and captured in Manchuria.
_Edit: Typo_
@mr_ anheuser I just noticed I tagged the wrong person. I actually meant to tag the other guy who was disagreeing with you. I edited the previous comment too. But it's a shame that people always discard the Soviet contributions in the pacific theather.
GOD I LITERALLY FUCKING LOVE YOUR CHANNEL
But seriously I love history and its my favorite subject. So these video are extremely enjoyable and interesting for me. Great work man : )
13:23 DEAD can't believe you said "that would've CAME" lmao bro that was tough to swallow
Actually, the Soviet invasion was far more decisive in ending the war, the Nukes didn't mean much when firebombing cities was just as effective.
Salokin Sekwah he mentioned that
Xander Iwicki Yep....Damn it
Salokin Sekwah Most of our industry was in the home islands. Manchuria did nothing but route a tired army.
Carson Marlow
I definitely agree with the first part. Second part, I don't necessarily agree.
Callsign-YukiMizuki it's true tho. Name a more powerful country, I'll wait.
made a comment two years ago that these doods are still talking about so I edited it
I'm Japanese and no anime and weebs sounds pretty decent.
No hentai= No retards
= no furries (I'm kidding)
@@ad5662 No furries will exist because anime created furries.
no hentai this world will not be a cool one.
Doubt the soviets could have taken Hokkaido, they could barely take the kurils because of the lack of navy and especially naval transport.
Yeah but much of the Japanese navy wouldn't exist by that point, after attempting to defend their outlying islands from American invasions and all.
@@Admiral_Jezza Doesn't matter. The Soviets did not have the amphibious capability whether they face a navy or not to invade the Japanese main islands. Logistics would be impossible and landing in the first place would be a near to zero chance.
Yeah, I basically tuned out when he said that. Discredited the whole thing.
@@loganowens4309 Only video I have ever disliked of Cody. So much bad shit in this video and horrible assumptions.
Actually soviet could have took hokkaido if they attempted the attack
The US did not retake every island occupied by Japan. They took key islands needed for moving forward and left the other islands to “wither on the vine”.
1:54 Dropping nukes on Japan was *not* part of the strategy, if for no other reason than the strategists didn't know that The Bomb existed!!
You also missed the typhoon that hit Japan in October 1945. It would have sunk many troop transport ships, and given a great boost to the defenders.
Also, the Sovs didn't have in amphibious invasion equipment or experience.
I have read through many of the comments, and think the ones concerning the "what if" about the Soviets were the most interesting.
I would be a supporter of the notion that the Soviets would not be able to mount an appreciable invasion of Japan, if any at all. The Soviet far east at that time was not very industrialized and it might take a while for them to develop the necessary equipment (air support, naval support and supply lines) for such an endeavor. Also note, that in the scenario of this video that Japan does not surrender, hence the Soviets would have their hands tied up fighting the Japanese armies on the mainland and where could they launch their assaults on Japan from with out the Koran peninsula? It took the US a while to get the amphibious landing down to a skill and figured out (all the while the Japanese were getting better at defending against them.) My guess is that the Soviets had not even considered an invasion of Japan or did not put much effort into planning (not much for them to gain there. More to gain on the mainland. How that might have changed the future if all the Korean peninsula was Soviet, possibly no Korean War. As far as the other Allied forces helping to invading Japan there are more places to land on a bigger island, and even the US experience in Europe with Airborne operations might come into play. Who says we would only land on beaches? There could be many scenarios of draws and feints.
As far as the other Allied forces helping to invading Japan I think that there would be more, but how much more? I know that a lot of the US Navy was on its way to Asia from the European theater. Due to the fact that the supply lines across the Atlantic did need as much protection .(My Dad, Coast Guard/Navy WWII veteran DE-251, was moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific said he was scared of the Kamikazes. Destroyers were there to serve as a antiaircraft vanguard to protect the bigger ships. I don't have statistics but I think from what I heard more DD and DEs got sunk by the Kamikazes. He was thankful they never got caught up to the battle fleets of the Pacific. Remembering you DAD!) My guess is only a small portion of the Allies' European armies probably would have only been sent to the far east. There was still the threat that the Soviets would make more land grabs if there were not as many Allies in their way. Thus the only troops that could be sent were if Soviet forces move from Europe to Asia and could be mirrored by the Allies. (Unfortunately the Soviets could move their troops faster than the Allies to the far east and back.) I am not sure how much extra help would be on it way for the Allies that were in Asia. They would still engaged in the Burma Theater and plenty of Japanese in SE Asia (I.e. the scenario: the Japanese did not surrender in August).
My notion is that if Japan did not surrender in August and the Japan mainland had to be invaded that there would not be a splitting of Japan between the Soviets and Allies. For the invasion, the losses would be high, but American war technology was getting better and better and Japan's ability to produce the requirements to fight were dwindling. I think that the invasion would defiantly have triggered more Japanese atrocities against all prisoners/slaves that they had, either killing them outright, work them quickly to death, use them as bait or using them to shield their own forces. (The fate of the POWs would have the greatest long term effects on psyche of America.)
Once a foot hold was gained the need for rapid advances might not be necessary, and the Allies could be satisfied by beating down the Japanese with unyielding bombardment (and possibly other new war technologies used) where needed and where the fighting forces were heavily entrenched/fortified encircle and contain. (I think they did some of that on some of the island campaigns.) I know there were plans to fortify the main islands: does anybody know what stage the fortifications plans were in or how effective they would have been? My guess not many effective fortifications completed. Japan throughout the war had trouble sustaining its forces, and now would be under more and constant pressure to maintain what fighting forces that they had (even the civilians being trained as suicide fighters can't fight if starving and weak.) The main target would have to be Tokyo. Tokyo is basically on a wide open plain, and I would say not a very defendable terrain. One might venture that something drastic would happen once Tokyo/Emperor was in definite striking distance/danger from the Allies. The losses would all depend on when the Japanese Emperor and/or Army would blink.
Just some speculation. Open to comments and who knows might change my mind tomorrow. Definitely interesting to read the comments as they help fill in some gaps in forming the background of the alternative history thought challenge.
Based
I'm 4 years late to the party.
The Soviets did not have a Pacific navy large enough to support an invasion. They could not sail their European fleet to the Pacific (it didn't go well the last time they tried, they don't get to use the Suez Canal, also still not enough ships). They could not build the necessary ships in Eastern Russia. The Soviets and US never collaborated tactically and strategic collaboration was in free fall. The USN would've basically told the Soviets to keep out or else, and it wouldn't have been difficult for the now idle submarine and escort carrier groups to back up the threat.
Also despite what we typically think about Stalin's USSR, they were a lot more open to taking Japanese troops prisoner than the US. They weren't afraid of the Soviets, the Soviets ended playtime in China which was the reason why Japan was fighting the US. But yeah basically the USSR would've been spreading its influence a lot harder in Asia if the US was occupied in fighting on the Japanese mainland
If 'Murica invaded Japan, Tom and Jerry would be considered Anime.
Saunterblugget Hampterfuppinshire but they are 😑
anime is japanese mean animation, so for japanese Frozen, Tom & Jerry,Final Fantasy 7,Naruto are all anime
the misconception is caused by the so called otaku outside of Japan , of course it was a super simplified version,japanese animation is indeed somewhat different and calling them anime to separate then from other animated movie to avoid misunderstanding is sound argument
Accept without high colored kawaii characters but with more serious overtones of Japanese honor and seppuku.
@@zeromailss 😑 is super cringe emoji.