Agreed He could teach a thing or two about production sets & cost efficiencies. Harpo Productions. . . ya watching? Noj Production. . . 5 rolls Schumacher floral
In the six days between Nagasaki and the acceptance of Potsdam, more people died than were killed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WW2 killed over a million people a month for its entire duration (1937-1945). It's a no brainer
Exactly! It's why I get so frustrated with those who have some kind of silly objection to the bombings! It's not even a debate in my mind, it's that simple!
These guys, as a collective, are my favourites on this channel. They are so fascinating and clear with their information and discussion points. Great episode!!
Agreed. Jonathan Parshall & Rear Admiral Parry are great combo. Hopefully the channel has more topics to mine that would pair well with bringing back Jonathan Parshall as a guest, assuming availibility.
This is very personal to me. I am a good by baby, born in April, 1945 when my father was fighting in Europe. After that war ended he was sent to fight Japan. He was a squad leader in the combat engineers and his job was to disarm mines and booby traps. He was likely to have been one of the million men killed or wounded during the invasion. Because Truman dropped the bomb, I grew up with an live and uninjured father.
@@drcovell Indeed, that was one of my reference points. (The other being West Germany- an example of the authoritarian regime eventually collapsing in order to bracket the spectrum of results of USSR involvement.)
Something worth commenting on is that if the Soviets had more time to be involved and could get a seat at the table for any negotiations after the peace, then there would almost certainly have been no way the Japanese Emperor gets off as lightly as he did.
@@politenessman3901 They sent 1.6million men and took down the Kwantung Army. They committed to attack Japan within 3 months of the fall of Germany and did so on 8th Aug fulfilling this committment. Oh yes they wanted spoils.
It must be easier to speculate what MIGHT happen in these theoretical discussions than to actually have had the weight on your shoulders making the actual decisions at the time. Knowing that hundreds of thousands and, in some scenarios, millions of lives, depending on your decision must have made it as stressful as it is possible to get. Good discussion. It's a bit like being the "quiet one in the corner" at a university Supervision, where the others have prepared well.
No matter how the war ended, if the Truman decided to not use the bomb, it would have ended his career. Even losing only the least number of troops, just imagine what would happen when it became known that almost 1/4 of the entire cost of the war was spent on a secret weapon which could have ended the way in a few days with no further loss of life, but was not used for whatever reason. I know that one of the people wanting Truman impeached would have been my mother. My father, an MD who served in Africa and Europe, had developed high blood pressure and angina from the stresses of the war, but had orders to report to San Diego to join the invasion fleet. Despite not having to go he was dead within a year. If there was an invasion he surely would have died over there. But that’s just one personal issue. As general Groves said in his book, if the bomb hadn’t worked he would have spent the rest of his life in congressional hearings trying to justify spending so much money. To actually have a working bomb but not use it would have been worse. Truman became president in April which is when he first learned of the bomb. He inherited a war of ‘unconditional surrender’ and the atom bomb from a 4 time elected president, the only president many people ever knew, and to suddenly make such big changes would have been political suicide. After V E Day people at home were anxious for the war to. be. OVER. The public was demanding an end to rationing, and for troops who had been in the pacific since the beginning to come home. Ending the war too early by negotiating a surrender without having control of what happened inside Japan would have just set the stage for another war 10-20 years later. As it is, we still had 2 wars because we thought we needed Russia’s help. Without Russia’s support there wouldn’t have been a partition of Korea or Vietnam. For just two weeks of Russian support we suffered two wars. I knew thousands of people who fought in the war, from 7 years working at a VA hospital and in my private practice as a physician. The vast majority of combat vets supported using the bomb. Remember, no one really understood the true effects of a nuclear weapon. Most people involved simply thought of it as just a much bigger bomb. The effects of radiation both long and short term wasn’t understood. As an example, in the 30s people bought radioactive toothpaste with thorium in it. There’s a saying that hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to something like this foresight is blind.
In 2024, we're still awarding Purple Heart medals that were minted in preparation for Downfall. They made that many, anticipating horrific casualties. Good video! Usually, I find your content to be highly informative, but a bit longish in delivery. On this one, I wished it went on even longer! Well done!
There were some WWII PH's that were awarded for Desert Storm, but other than that, nah, that supply was pretty much exhausted after Vietnam. The remainder of surplus WII PH's were sold to the public back in the mid- to late-90s.
When the bombs fell, my father was a LTJG aboard the USS Zeilin (APA-3), one of the Navy's largest fast attack transports that carried troops and the landing craft to put them ashore under fire. The Zeilin was returning from San Francisco, where she'd been for several months repairing damage sustained when she was struck by a kamikaze en route to Iwo Jima. Her next mission was to begin collecting and training troops for Operation Downfall, in which - as Adm. Parry noted at about 28 minutes into the video, and Mr. Parshall further explained at about 30 minutes in - she would have been a highly prized target, ahead even of the (much better protected) battleships and aircraft carriers. Had the bombs not been dropped, the odds are quite high that I wouldn't be here to convey my thanks and admiration to the participants in this very good discussion, and to extend Christmas wishes for peace on earth to them and everyone who views this video.
I was just thinking about the Falklands San Carlos scenario with attack aircraft coming overland to surprise landing ships, when the historian mentions it casually...
This was a good one. I've said for a while that if the bombs had not been ready or had failed to be developed, Truman might very well have decided to not go ahead with Operation Downfall at all. He might have not wanted to be the guy who presided over such a great loss of U.S. military lives. They might have decided to go ahead with the firebombing and blockade. John says towards the end that the entire Japanese food distribution system would have collapsed by the Spring of '46.
Jon’s right about that, but he knows more about it than had time to mention here. Elsewhere (on the _Unauthorized History of the Pacific War_ channel), in discussions about postwar Japan, Jon mentions that the 1945 rice crop suffered a disastrous failure, and the Japanese were in for mass starvation in late 1945 into 1946. Had the war not ended when it did, MacArthur wouldn’t have been able to bring in the foodstocks that saved postwar Japanese from starvation.
No, the US was committed to invading Japan. In the weeks from May 1945, the US and UK were redeploying troops, and air and naval assets to the Japanese theatre. They would have spent nine months of building forces up and training the troops.
The British DID re-establish themselves in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. That is not counterfactual. Whereas, if the French could have held on to Vietnam, that would have been.
I also found that an odd comment as the British did re-establish themselves in Burma, Malaya and Singapore. Burma did become independent in 1948 along with India and Pakistan which I think was too soon considering what a screwed up country Myanmar is now. Malaysia and Singapore are stable successful countries. The Netherlands did try to re-establish themselves in Indonesia but not successfully. I have read that the RN getting involved in the Pacific was to ensure that the British could re-establish British presence in Hong Kong.
@@kevinrayner5812There is a fascinating book called Mountbatten's Samurai. It deals with how soldiers of the IJN were used to help re-establish colonial rule especially Vietnam.
@@philipebbrell2793 I wonder if I can go a bit off topic here. Burma had been very largely recovered in 1945 before the final Japanese surrender in September 1945. The next stage to plan the retake Malaya and to invade Thailand was underway. I have searched and searched and I can't anything about how the invasion of Thailand was to take place. I know that the Japanese had moved POWs to the east of Thailand. I assume the invasion would have followed the route of the Burma Siam railway. A what if video of the Japanese winning at Imphal and Kohima would be interesting then analysis of the situation in SE Asia if the A bomb had not been dropped and invasion of Thailand and Malaya had taken place.
@@philipebbrell2793 Disarmed Japanese soldiers were certainly re-armed by the French. In different circumstances, the Japanese army was invited to Singapore by the British in 1918, to quell civilian unrest.
I most likely would have never been born if the bombs had not been dropped. My mom's dad was in the 11th airborne division and would've been one of the first to go into Japan. Odds are he would've been killed and my mom wouldn't have been born
Dad was in Newport News training on a Command Ship. I'm very certain that his ship would have taken part in either of the invasions. Luckily the Japanese government came to the realization that acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration was a necessity move in order to save the country. Dad never saw combat and here I am.
Superbly done, gentlemen! And Jon, this is almost shaping up to be another *_Three Amigos_* gig for you, second only to your triumvirate with Seth and Captain Bill over on the brilliant _Unauthorized History of the Pacific War_ channel…er, except that this gig is missing the electric Kool-Aid Acid psychedelic shirts. 😎
I heard that the USA with the number of casualties they expected produced vast quantities of Purple Hearts (the medal given to wounded military) that they are still using the stocks from that time.
I had heard the same so i did some googling : "During World War II, 1,506,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured, many in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. By the end of the war, even accounting for medals lost, stolen, or wasted, nearly 500,000 remained"
@@pax6833 From a quick research, that's not true. They've mixed in new-production medals with some remaining from this time. I'm sure we'll run out in the next few years, but there are still some left.
There might be a handful left, but the vast majority of WWII Purple Hearts were exhausted after Korea and Vietnam. There were some WWII PH's that were awarded for Desert Storm and the rest were sold off to the public as surplus in the late 90s.
My father was in the U.S. Navy and helmed a LCT, first action was landing 1st division troops on Omaha beach, something he couldn't bear to talk about until he was in his late eighties. He was transferred to the Pacific and took part in 4 or 5 landings. He was on a LST anchored just outside Okinawa harbor when they were sunk by a kamikaze. All the guys knew a big invasion was coming and absolutely dreaded it. My father was a big fan of the A bomb.
Jonathon .....Love that faded Hawaiin shirt .. Looks like a Reyn Spooner & reminds me of the old Chart House restaurant! It's very cool amigo. and might I add it provides perfectly seamless camouflage against the backdrop of that wallpaper...
With the hive mind thinking in Japan of the day, had US forces landed in Japan ,besides Japanese troops, mass formations of civilians with sharpened bamboo doing human wave charges would have been encountered.With the firepower possessed by US forces of the day, and the animosity in the heart of the US, The realization of Adm William Halsey ' s prediction of " The only place Japanese will be spoken is in Hell when we are through with them" would have come to pass.
they would have hesitated, because they had no reliable delivery system. If they built a weapon of US weight and dimension they could not deliver it by air.
@@luketaper9401 I think there's a legit argument that an attempt by submarine into one of our ports (or even Pearl Harbor) might have at least been possible, though not necessarily successful...or even impactful.
The main reason Operation Downfall did not occur stems from two factors. One is not having enough forces without withdrawing from the European theater, with estimates of a need of 1.5 million to make it work. Two, the battles of Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, and the proposed invasion of Korea were taking way too long and costing way too many lives. On top of that, none of the allies were in any shape to respond after the war in Europe. This is proven with what would be considered a token task force from the Commonwealth forces with two carriers, two battleships, a cruiser, and 9 destroyers that were a mix of Australian, Canadian, and British forces to the sea part of the plan and having only 2 divisions from Australia. The estimated end of the war would be the beginning of 1947 which was considered too much for American planners. The option of the bombs being used to counter what would be viewed as a bloodletting of epic proportions was only after FDR died because people were becoming war-weary and wanted it to END!
Good logistical point made by Parshall about Iwo Jima. DL Giangreco is a good read on "Downfall" sourcing military plans both sides and Soviet archives. We had a completely separate and necassarilly secretive Lend Lease agreement with the USSR focused on Manchuria that included Liberty Ships and training merchant crews for them down to uniforms for the Soviet troops. Richard Frank is also good but what Giangreco sees in the Japanese strategy of "Redoubt" to force negotiations might've been more viable than we'd like to admit depending on our casualties. Giangreco's book: "Hell to Pay" 2nd edition is pretty detailled in the preperations perhaps heavy towards the Japansee plans. I've yet to read Richard Frank past "Tower of Skulls" which I also recommend. He also pointed out that the Emporer's directive made the Soviet advances in Manchuria as successful as it was as most troops in Manchuria were commanded by officers convinced by Hirohito's inner circle of spokesmen to retain fidelity to the Emporer's directive.
Would make a great scifi episode. People with good intentions uses a time machine to prevent the success of the US atomic bomb program. Returns to the present to see the USSR in control of the world.
I often wonder if the bombs had not been dropped in 1945, exposing the general population the destructive power of nuclear weapons, would the Cold War have escalated to a full blown nuclear conflict?
Truman would have been impeached and since there was no 25th amendment to replace the VP if he became President, the Speaker of the house would have become President, which would have been Sam Rayburn at the time.
Japan surrendered due to the atomic bomb. Japanese commanders wanted to fight to the death and take as many of the enemy with them as possible. The A-bomb made the Japanese leaders realize that the allies could destroy their country from the air without setting foot in Japan. Further resistance would be futile. The Japanese surrendered 6 days after the 2nd use of a nuclear weapon. Case closed.
At the time of the surrender, my dad was sitting in the Philippines as part of the 5th Cav waiting to participate in the invasion. There is a good chance I and my 8 siblings wouldn't be here either.
The Island of Kyushu was invaded in the 4th Century and Honshu in the 4-5th Century, by iron-armored Horseriders from the 3 Kingdoms from Iron Age Korea. See the book *Korean Impact on Japanese Culture: Japan’s Hidden History* by Covell, which examines Korean-Japanese relations from ancient prehistory up to the Japanese Colonial Period.
Your best production yet, an incredible episode. I think the only thing you missed is that Chiang Kai-shek might've had more support to defeat Mao. A stretch I know but the communisation of Asia might not've happened.
A very good point. Had the Nationalists defeated the Communists, the Cold War may have also played out differently. Certainly Vietnam wouldn't have occurred.
The truth of the matter is that the A-Bombs would've been ineffectual to use as tactical weapons, except for destroying something like a strategic bridge or airfield. We would've just been irradiating our troops on the beaches for not much gain.
On 10 august 1945 Marshall ordered that future weapons be stockpiled for the invasion. The would notional used to create bridgeheads ashore. Essentially the target list was frozen after Nagasaki with Truman's knowledge.
For those who are against the atomic bombs being dropped, here's something to seriously think about. If you had a father, grandfather, or great-grandfather fight in WWII (or would've become eligible for military service had the war lasted a couple of more years) and he was sent to fight in the invasion of Japan (or on the Japanese side, had to help defend Japan) and he dies, you don't exist. If the casualty estimates ended up being accurate or higher than expected, you end up having fewer boomers, fewer Gen Xers, fewer millennials, fewer Gen Zers, etc. as a result. Had either one of my grandfathers been killed (one was in the war as a member of the Army Air Corps, the other would've been eligible for military service had the war lasted longer), I don't exist.
The "estimates" of million+ allied casualties are numbers plucked from the air by politicians, notably Truman. Actual estimates, like the Army estimate, were based on casualty RATES, with Army expecting a rate on Kyushu comparable to the battles of Phillipines/Manilla. For the Naval part of the fight onto Kyushu Nimitz estimated 10,000 casualties.
Yeah that 1,2 combo coming in just 10 days of 2 nukes, a Soviet invasion, and the threat of more bombs was the only senerio where Japan surrendered without an invasion. Cant do it without one or the other
The one question I ask and rarely hear those who were against the dropping of the bombs is, 'If you're the President how many more POWs would have died and would you have let that happen?' because they were dying in droves.
If the Atomic Bombs had been not used, would there have been Godzilla-Movies in Japan? As far as I know, the experience of those drops had been one of the major motivations for making the Godzilla movies in the first place.
Also the dropping of the bombs demonstrated to Stalin that the US didn't need any help in defeating the Japanese and thus position the US in the Eastern Asia zone of influence.
My father served in the USN '44-'53. He was slated for Olympic. I read that if the Soviets had invaded Hokkaido and moved south to Honshu, the US would have envisioned going straight to Coronet to cut the Soviet drive off.
"Sorry guys, we opted to lose 1 million of our own soldiers because we wanted to preserve the lives of the baby-murderers who blew up our port and tried to colonise their continent like it's the 1600s" ~Harry Alternate Truman
I'm with Jon and his comment about the effect of a potential blockade and when 1946 came, Japan would have been starving. Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech also referred to the bad domestic situation. I've heard one US military historian speculate that he was referring to the recent bad domestic rice harvest. Even before the war, Japan needed to import food. If their domestic production was lowered, combined with the strengthening allied blockade, they didn't have the food to feed their people and that was going to be felt almost immediately. You combined that with allied airpower destroying their infrastructure and their ability to move what food they had around, you are looking at mass starvation in parts of Japan. I don't see Japan having the literal strength to fight beyond 1946. Never mind the fact that their ability to produce weapons and ammunition would have been mostly destroyed before then. Just the numbers of Japanese that would have died massively outweigh those that died in the atomic bombings, never mind the numbers that would have died in areas still under Japanese occupation.
My father went into Navy, was in training as medic for the invasion of Japan. He younger by couple years my uncle that landed as Marine, Iwo Jima and his brother a pilot. If bombs not dropped and surrender, I might not be here.
I think the contribution of the British Pacific Fleet is terribly unstated in the pacific war. While Adm King didn't want us there he did come cap in hand asking us for an aircraft carrier when the US navy was down to one serviceable carrier, Saratoga, after the loss of Hornet at the battle of Santa Cruz. So in 1943 HMS Victorious then operates with US Navy as USS Robin, for which Nimitz was very grateful and gave us all the logistic support we needed, which gave British FAA pilots the necessary experience for working with the US Navy, flying Hellcats, Avengers and Corsairs. Yes the British saw the political and military necessity of re-establishing themselves in the old empire but that was only part of it, defeating Japan was the prime concern.
I think they would have transitioned from total control to bypassing groups dug into a mountainous region, you do not get bogged down and casualties with a Saipan or Philippines after the fall of Manilla. They would have attacked from multiple vectors over the first 6 months and pursued the most favorable paths to objectives like Tokyo. Other than those dug in troops with supplies, the resistance of each month and step will get weaker, they were running out of modern weapons. Other than dug in pockets the front-line resistance would be less each month and be goal oriented to take Tokyo and several other large cities. Once you control transportation and the major cities you starve out the pockets.
One thing not said here is the the US asked the Soviets to intervene against Japan at the Yalta onference in February 1945. An agreemnent was made for the USSR to intervene commencing on August 15, 1945. The first bomb was used on the 6th and the Soviets moved their offensive date forward to the 9th. The scale of the offensive and the combat strength of the two opposing forces was notable. The Japanese were practically unable to stop the Soviet heavy tanks rolling forward and the Manchurian Japanese army was practically destroyed within a week. This did have an effect on the Japanese decision to surrender. They wisely realised that the Soviets may be given an occupation zone in Japan itself, something they were very worried about. The western Allies also changed their unconditional surrender demand to concede that the Emperor should be allowed to stay on as Japans god like ruler, if in name only. This concession helped change the Japanese mindset on continuing the war.
My Dad was in The 11th Airborne Division joint in April 1945, Stationed in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Tōhoku region. He served in Hiroshima during cleanup, returned to Sendai in early 1946 then on to Sapporo, Hokkaido until 1947 when US Army after accepting him in to OCS sent him home due to only being 17. Yes he joined at 15, by 16 he was a Cpl in the MP's and a parachute rigger. Does anyone trust a 16 year old to be a Cop or rig their parachute today? let along make them an NCO. Different time.
The actual mechanism of the Japanese decision to surrender is still not widely known. It is true that the energy of the abomb, 18k tons, is larger than say a 1000 bomber raid, say 3k tons, the effective damage is not hugely different. The Japanese were aware of theory of the bomb, and also that it is very difficult resource intensive to produce enough fissile material. Hence after the first bomb, it was agreed it was an A-bomb, the hard core continue the war faction staked their reputation that another bomb would not happen for months. When the second bomb occurred only days later, they lost face, and that gave opening for the surrender faction to sway the emperor
Thank you for this video. I conforms what I have said/ment for a long time that because of the willingness of the Japanese people to die for Japan/Emperor, the cost in both military and civilian lives would have bin much higher.
If japan had ended up blockaged and firebombed eould there been an orginized goverment left to surender? For example the Tokyo area imported over 98 percent of its food and between subs cutting off coastal shipping and bombing raids cutting the rail network there would have been bmass starvation and civil uprisings
As the speakers said in the beginning, there was more to the equation than the Japanese. Over 200k allied civilians in Japan, 750k of allied civilians dieing per month in surrounding countries.
There was a tv show in the 1990’s called “Sliders” that I liked where the main characters traveled through alternate histories. I remember seeing one episode exactly like this. No atomic bombs. Japanese invasion. Japan was split in two just like Korea is in our world with a communist North and an Allied capitalist south.
@@stephenyoung3721 Yes, and we could add they had already demonstrated they were more than willing to sacrifice the lives of their "colonies" like the Koreans and "marginally Japanese" like the Okinawans.
The fact is that of the next 9 atomic bombs in production, only one went nuclear. The other 8 were duds. Trying to use more bombs would have been embarrassing, and would have encouraged magic thinking among Japanese leaders.
I've long been a fan of a genre of writing called "Alternative History" or "Counterfactualism". You make one change to a historic timeline, the change being as small and as creible as possible, and then speculate on what that change wrought. On this exact subject, I've read quite a few such speculative pieces. One posited that the US went ahead with the first part of Downfall, Olympic, which was the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan proper. It turned out that our intel drastically underestimated the number of Japanese troops on the island, with there being a new parity between the number of attackers and defenders. This is not a recipe for a successful invasion. The piece envisioned a stalemate lasting long enough for the Soviet Union to expand their toehold on Sakhalin Island and invade the Japanese home islands. At this point, invaded from north and south, I think the Japanese would have been forced to surrender, with the result that there likely would have been a Communist Northern Japan and a Free Southern Japan with Tokyo being partitioned the way Berlin was. The second piece I recall dealt with an expansion of the strategic bombing campaign, including additional firebombing where appropriate (although by August 1945 there weren't many cities that hadn't been firebombed). The Inland Sea had been mined to the point that ship traffic was virtually at a standstill. The Japanese home islands could not grow enough food to feed their populace, and the ways by which food (and fuel) was transported was becoming increasingly fragile. Post-war evaluation of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign found that, as devastating to infrastructure as the real campaign had been, it would have been even more devastating had we concentrated on Japan's limited railroad network. This would have brought down Japan quickly, but was likely to have the result of causing a multi-year famine among the Japanese population.
While I like Jonathan Parshall's idea of the Americans skipping Kyushu and landing directly on the Kanto Plain near Tokyo, it wasn't gonna happen. The Americans insisted on a plodding, steady march from Guadalcanal to New Guinea, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa with air attacks from the Mariana Islands (Saipan, Tinian, etc) wearing down the Japanese Home Islands forces. Iwo Jima had been utterly unprepared if the Navy and Marines had landed there in October or November 1944, but the plodding approach delayed the pretty obvious landing there until February 1945. Note that any Japanese staff officer with a map, a ruler, and an understanding of the Allied aircraft ranges, could figure out which islands with airfields were the next invasion targets. That's why Okinawa and Iwo Jima had such stout emplacements and why American casualties were approaching 1:1 at times on those islands. Kyushu was the next, obvious and logical target and would have been covered in pillboxes and assorted entrenchments before November 1, 1945. Fortunately, the Japanese had an idiotic plan for trying to hold the Kyushu beaches by using mobile forces and resisting at the water's edge again, something they had quit doing at Okinawa, with great effect. Given the massive air and naval gunfire superiority of the Allied forces striking Kyushu, the Japanese soldiers would have been utterly decimated, along with their vehicles trying to make "mobility" happen under the Big Blue Blanket of Hellcats and Corsairs. The biggest nightmare scenario was the 10,000 Japanese aircraft lurking in Korea, ready to cross the narrow Sea of Japan and swoop down as kamikazes on the Allied invasion fleet. Perhaps Halsey or Spruance could have taken the fast carriers to Korea and massacred Japanese aircraft there as they had so many times before. Still, too many would have been able to fight another day.
I always thought that landing on Kyushu would be the absolute stupidest plan they could possibly come up with, with the exception of exacerbating the stupidity by nuking the beaches first. When I looked at this issue, that was the first thing that jumped out. certainly launch a fake invasion there to draw off Japanese defenders against empty transports supported by the land based aircaft, but the real landing in Kochi on Shikoku. A protected port on a small island. set up air and naval patrols to inhibit reinforcements coming across, while the Seabees set up airfields for the Army fighters to transfer too. Then take the small island and you have an unsinkable carrier right in the heart of Japan.
41:50 Yes, looks like Japan 'over-fortified' Kyushu, which could have been flipped against them. You could lock down 800-900K of likely best remaining troops & equipment in Kyshu. Then, submarines & aircraft to deny any sizable retrieval of troops from Kyshu. Plus, such high troop & civilian numbers in Kyshu are not likely well supplied for a long hold out, and they will degrade by starvation. Then, focus on landing &/or localized starvation elsewhere.
Overall, this is a nice 'what if' discussion. I would have liked a bit more conceptual detail on the ground and naval actions likely seen in the subject Kyushu invasion (& perhaps on the Kioto concept).
The Japanese commander on Okinawa knew that he could not defeat the US troops. But he could inflict as many casualties as possible to give the US commanders pause about invading. IIRC there were so many Purple Heart medals made in anticipation of huge US casualties that decades later they have not used all of them. Truman has the dilemma that if he sends in the troops and there are horrific casualties and the public learns that the US had a weapon that could have avoided that (the better thee than me viewpoint), the American public would have been furious that US lives were lost when they didn't have to be. So his decision comes down to do I sacrifice Japanese lives or American lives.
An excellent analysis. I'd never thought about the hostages before: the civilian populations of the occupied territories and the POWs. An immediate forced capitulation saved millions and even tens of millions of lives. Add to that the Japanese culture that surrender was a disgrace: in Okinawa, thousands of civilians committed suicide. The same would likely have happened in Japan. Finally, the big unanswered question: why were civilian targets chosen? That is why today the atomic bombs and the firebombings are widely regarded as atrocities. It's a pity you skirted that.
Surprised they do not mention Korea, a war that drags on till November means Soviets have taken all of Korea, amphibious ability to take Hokkaido is debatable, but on the mainland nothing is stopping them.
As much as I respect Jon Parshall's opinion, I don't agree with his perspective on the impact of Russia invading Manchuria. IMO the atomic bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki (as awful as they were) does not significantly impact Japan's strategic situation in August 1945 - they still can't prevent the US from bombing their cities (either atomically or normally) & they have not lost any additional territory. In fact, they still "control" more territory on August 8 1945 than they did in Dec. '41. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, however, does significantly impact Japan's strategic situation - the Japanese lose the ability to draw upon the Kwangtung/China area armies for reinforcements & they lose the ability to gather raw materials from China & Korea (& technically SE Asia) that can help sustain the home islands. All ability to effectively communicate with their armies in SE Asia & China are cut off with the loss of Manchuria & Korea. The Sea of Japan now is easier for US submarines to access. And the Japanese lose what they initially believed would be an honest broker in any peace talks with the Allies. I think the Japanese leadership on August 8 still think they have a decent hand to play in forcing the Americans to the negotiating table but they realize on Aug 9/10 that their hand is no longer sufficiently strong enough.
Probably more interesting question is what if after two bombs dropped Japan would not surrender? They would have realized that Americans had been bluffing as there were no more bombs. Quite possibly the taboo of atomic weapons would have never been established as other countries could think: look at them, they absorbed two hits and fought on.
You really don't know your British history if you think that Britain would have taken the opportunity to reestablish its empire in the area. The Empire had been bleeding Britain dry well before WW1 due to changing mindsets, it became the British people's responsibility to raise up and improve all the countries in the empire. The British built and staffed schools and hospitals in India and other countries, it was costing far more than Britain was gaining. There was a ban on claik8ng new territories for Britain, but British officers ignored the order and did it anyway. They knew that the British government would be forced to publicly praise them and reward them, also it advanced their military careers. Pre WW1 Britain was done with empire, it was only old school die hards that wanted to maintain the empire no matter the cost.
I am a simple man. If Jon Parshall is talking about WWII, I am watching.
Agreed
He could teach a thing or two about production sets & cost efficiencies.
Harpo Productions. . . ya watching?
Noj Production. . . 5 rolls Schumacher floral
What about the chemical and biological weapons we were going to deploy
I just wish he did more in-person talks. these 'zoom' meetings get annoying. I understood during COVID, but let's get back to normal.
I’m anxiously awaiting Jon’s book about 1942!
@@bobnewby9129
Indeed.
In the six days between Nagasaki and the acceptance of Potsdam, more people died than were killed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WW2 killed over a million people a month for its entire duration (1937-1945). It's a no brainer
Chinese deaths averaged 200,000 each month during those years.
The "scholars" who said otherwise are morons 😂🎉😂
Exactly! It's why I get so frustrated with those who have some kind of silly objection to the bombings! It's not even a debate in my mind, it's that simple!
@@canuck_gamer3359also if the Japanese had the bombs,‘they would of definitely used it!
Hi. You say 1937 for the start of WWII, why?
James doesn't get enough credit for how well he handles these discussions.
These guys, as a collective, are my favourites on this channel. They are so fascinating and clear with their information and discussion points. Great episode!!
Agreed. Jonathan Parshall & Rear Admiral Parry are great combo. Hopefully the channel has more topics to mine that would pair well with bringing back Jonathan Parshall as a guest, assuming availibility.
This was one of the best videos of the series. Congratulations
This is very personal to me. I am a good by baby, born in April, 1945 when my father was fighting in Europe. After that war ended he was sent to fight Japan. He was a squad leader in the combat engineers and his job was to disarm mines and booby traps. He was likely to have been one of the million men killed or wounded during the invasion. Because Truman dropped the bomb, I grew up with an live and uninjured father.
What was the need to INVADE Japan?
@@kevinbrennan-ji1so What was the NEED to invade Germany?
They didn't want to quit.
@@kevinbrennan-ji1sooh I don't know. Maybe it was because Japan refused to Surrender.
Always enjoy both Chris and Jon together, both really smart guys and always a treat.
Allowing the USSR enough time to get more involved in Japan would've been ruinous for Japan.
If you want to see what would have happened with the USSR in Japan, look at Korea.
@@drcovell Indeed, that was one of my reference points.
(The other being West Germany- an example of the authoritarian regime eventually collapsing in order to bracket the spectrum of results of USSR involvement.)
They probably would have grabbed Hokkaido.
@@drcovell Japan is an island and USa had naval supremacy so that seems a bit...different. Snatching Hokkaido maybe is more realistic?
Something worth commenting on is that if the Soviets had more time to be involved and could get a seat at the table for any negotiations after the peace, then there would almost certainly have been no way the Japanese Emperor gets off as lightly as he did.
The Soviets were given plenty of time and given LSTs, they didn't want to do the heavy lifting, but they wanted in on the spoils.
@@politenessman3901 They sent 1.6million men and took down the Kwantung Army. They committed to attack Japan within 3 months of the fall of Germany and did so on 8th Aug fulfilling this committment. Oh yes they wanted spoils.
Jon’s shirt is always the extra guest on the podcast and I love it!
It must be easier to speculate what MIGHT happen in these theoretical discussions than to actually have had the weight on your shoulders making the actual decisions at the time. Knowing that hundreds of thousands and, in some scenarios, millions of lives, depending on your decision must have made it as stressful as it is possible to get.
Good discussion. It's a bit like being the "quiet one in the corner" at a university Supervision, where the others have prepared well.
No matter how the war ended, if the Truman decided to not use the bomb, it would have ended his career. Even losing only the least number of troops, just imagine what would happen when it became known that almost 1/4 of the entire cost of the war was spent on a secret weapon which could have ended the way in a few days with no further loss of life, but was not used for whatever reason. I know that one of the people wanting Truman impeached would have been my mother. My father, an MD who served in Africa and Europe, had developed high blood pressure and angina from the stresses of the war, but had orders to report to San Diego to join the invasion fleet. Despite not having to go he was dead within a year. If there was an invasion he surely would have died over there. But that’s just one personal issue. As general Groves said in his book, if the bomb hadn’t worked he would have spent the rest of his life in congressional hearings trying to justify spending so much money. To actually have a working bomb but not use it would have been worse. Truman became president in April which is when he first learned of the bomb. He inherited a war of ‘unconditional surrender’ and the atom bomb from a 4 time elected president, the only president many people ever knew, and to suddenly make such big changes would have been political suicide. After V E Day people at home were anxious for the war to. be. OVER. The public was demanding an end to rationing, and for troops who had been in the pacific since the beginning to come home. Ending the war too early by negotiating a surrender without having control of what happened inside Japan would have just set the stage for another war 10-20 years later. As it is, we still had 2 wars because we thought we needed Russia’s help. Without Russia’s support there wouldn’t have been a partition of Korea or Vietnam. For just two weeks of Russian support we suffered two wars. I knew thousands of people who fought in the war, from 7 years working at a VA hospital and in my private practice as a physician. The vast majority of combat vets supported using the bomb. Remember, no one really understood the true effects of a nuclear weapon. Most people involved simply thought of it as just a much bigger bomb. The effects of radiation both long and short term wasn’t understood. As an example, in the 30s people bought radioactive toothpaste with thorium in it. There’s a saying that hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to something like this foresight is blind.
In 2024, we're still awarding Purple Heart medals that were minted in preparation for Downfall. They made that many, anticipating horrific casualties.
Good video! Usually, I find your content to be highly informative, but a bit longish in delivery. On this one, I wished it went on even longer! Well done!
There were some WWII PH's that were awarded for Desert Storm, but other than that, nah, that supply was pretty much exhausted after Vietnam. The remainder of surplus WII PH's were sold to the public back in the mid- to late-90s.
When the bombs fell, my father was a LTJG aboard the USS Zeilin (APA-3), one of the Navy's largest fast attack transports that carried troops and the landing craft to put them ashore under fire. The Zeilin was returning from San Francisco, where she'd been for several months repairing damage sustained when she was struck by a kamikaze en route to Iwo Jima. Her next mission was to begin collecting and training troops for Operation Downfall, in which - as Adm. Parry noted at about 28 minutes into the video, and Mr. Parshall further explained at about 30 minutes in - she would have been a highly prized target, ahead even of the (much better protected) battleships and aircraft carriers. Had the bombs not been dropped, the odds are quite high that I wouldn't be here to convey my thanks and admiration to the participants in this very good discussion, and to extend Christmas wishes for peace on earth to them and everyone who views this video.
Top notch. Really enjoyed this episode. TY
I was just thinking about the Falklands San Carlos scenario with attack aircraft coming overland to surprise landing ships, when the historian mentions it casually...
This was a good one. I've said for a while that if the bombs had not been ready or had failed to be developed, Truman might very well have decided to not go ahead with Operation Downfall at all. He might have not wanted to be the guy who presided over such a great loss of U.S. military lives. They might have decided to go ahead with the firebombing and blockade. John says towards the end that the entire Japanese food distribution system would have collapsed by the Spring of '46.
Jon’s right about that, but he knows more about it than had time to mention here. Elsewhere (on the _Unauthorized History of the Pacific War_ channel), in discussions about postwar Japan, Jon mentions that the 1945 rice crop suffered a disastrous failure, and the Japanese were in for mass starvation in late 1945 into 1946. Had the war not ended when it did, MacArthur wouldn’t have been able to bring in the foodstocks that saved postwar Japanese from starvation.
No, the US was committed to invading Japan. In the weeks from May 1945, the US and UK were redeploying troops, and air and naval assets to the Japanese theatre. They would have spent nine months of building forces up and training the troops.
How many Japanese would have died by then?
@@johnhallett5846 go by the earlier text; one million per month worldwide multiplied by ratio of Japanese to total population.
@@ernestcote3398 Well into double digits
The British DID re-establish themselves in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. That is not counterfactual. Whereas, if the French could have held on to Vietnam, that would have been.
I also found that an odd comment as the British did re-establish themselves in Burma, Malaya and Singapore. Burma did become independent in 1948 along with India and Pakistan which I think was too soon considering what a screwed up country Myanmar is now. Malaysia and Singapore are stable successful countries. The Netherlands did try to re-establish themselves in Indonesia but not successfully. I have read that the RN getting involved in the Pacific was to ensure that the British could re-establish British presence in Hong Kong.
@@kevinrayner5812There is a fascinating book called Mountbatten's Samurai. It deals with how soldiers of the IJN were used to help re-establish colonial rule especially Vietnam.
@@philipebbrell2793 I wonder if I can go a bit off topic here. Burma had been very largely recovered in 1945 before the final Japanese surrender in September 1945. The next stage to plan the retake Malaya and to invade Thailand was underway. I have searched and searched and I can't anything about how the invasion of Thailand was to take place. I know that the Japanese had moved POWs to the east of Thailand. I assume the invasion would have followed the route of the Burma Siam railway. A what if video of the Japanese winning at Imphal and Kohima would be interesting then analysis of the situation in SE Asia if the A bomb had not been dropped and invasion of Thailand and Malaya had taken place.
@@philipebbrell2793 Disarmed Japanese soldiers were certainly re-armed by the French. In different circumstances, the Japanese army was invited to Singapore by the British in 1918, to quell civilian unrest.
Interesting note: American Army medics saved the lives of Ho Chi Min and what became his Politburo, when they were dying of various diseases in 1945.
I most likely would have never been born if the bombs had not been dropped. My mom's dad was in the 11th airborne division and would've been one of the first to go into Japan. Odds are he would've been killed and my mom wouldn't have been born
My dad was also in the 11th Airborne and I know that if we had invaded with Operation Olympic, I would have never been born.
Dad was in Newport News training on a Command Ship. I'm very certain that his ship would have taken part in either of the invasions. Luckily the Japanese government came to the realization that acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration was a necessity move in order to save the country. Dad never saw combat and here I am.
Great video. It deserves more views.
Superbly done, gentlemen! And Jon, this is almost shaping up to be another *_Three Amigos_* gig for you, second only to your triumvirate with Seth and Captain Bill over on the brilliant _Unauthorized History of the Pacific War_ channel…er, except that this gig is missing the electric Kool-Aid Acid psychedelic shirts. 😎
I heard that the USA with the number of casualties they expected produced vast quantities of Purple Hearts (the medal given to wounded military) that they are still using the stocks from that time.
I had heard the same so i did some googling :
"During World War II, 1,506,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured, many in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. By the end of the war, even accounting for medals lost, stolen, or wasted, nearly 500,000 remained"
That is true.
Not true anymore. They did recently run out a few years ago.
@@pax6833 From a quick research, that's not true. They've mixed in new-production medals with some remaining from this time. I'm sure we'll run out in the next few years, but there are still some left.
There might be a handful left, but the vast majority of WWII Purple Hearts were exhausted after Korea and Vietnam. There were some WWII PH's that were awarded for Desert Storm and the rest were sold off to the public as surplus in the late 90s.
Great stuff
My father was in the U.S. Navy and helmed a LCT, first action was landing 1st division troops on Omaha beach, something he couldn't bear to talk about until he was in his late eighties. He was transferred to the Pacific and took part in 4 or 5 landings.
He was on a LST anchored just outside Okinawa harbor when they were sunk by a kamikaze. All the guys knew a big invasion was coming and absolutely dreaded it. My father was a big fan of the A bomb.
Jon’s camo shirt 9/10
This was a great talk, bless you all.🇨🇦
The one I’ve waited for. Thank you!!
Good to see jon again 👍
Interesting topic. Thank you.
Jonathon .....Love that faded Hawaiin shirt .. Looks like a Reyn Spooner & reminds me of the old Chart House restaurant! It's very cool amigo. and might I add it provides perfectly seamless camouflage against the backdrop of that wallpaper...
With the hive mind thinking in Japan of the day, had US forces landed in Japan ,besides Japanese troops, mass formations of civilians with sharpened bamboo doing human wave charges would have been encountered.With the firepower possessed by US forces of the day, and the animosity in the heart of the US, The realization of Adm William Halsey ' s prediction of " The only place Japanese will be spoken is in Hell when we are through with them" would have come to pass.
Fantastic discussion. Well done.
Excellent analysis.
When I consider the Atomic bombing of Japan. I ask myself. If Japan had an Atomic Bomb, would they have hesitated to use it?
Genda flat out admitted that they would have with no hesitation
It would have been never an issue to them.
100% they would have used it first. Whether it was on the US troops or British Empire troops would be the only discussion.
they would have hesitated, because they had no reliable delivery system. If they built a weapon of US weight and dimension they could not deliver it by air.
@@luketaper9401 I think there's a legit argument that an attempt by submarine into one of our ports (or even Pearl Harbor) might have at least been possible, though not necessarily successful...or even impactful.
The main reason Operation Downfall did not occur stems from two factors. One is not having enough forces without withdrawing from the European theater, with estimates of a need of 1.5 million to make it work. Two, the battles of Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, and the proposed invasion of Korea were taking way too long and costing way too many lives. On top of that, none of the allies were in any shape to respond after the war in Europe. This is proven with what would be considered a token task force from the Commonwealth forces with two carriers, two battleships, a cruiser, and 9 destroyers that were a mix of Australian, Canadian, and British forces to the sea part of the plan and having only 2 divisions from Australia. The estimated end of the war would be the beginning of 1947 which was considered too much for American planners. The option of the bombs being used to counter what would be viewed as a bloodletting of epic proportions was only after FDR died because people were becoming war-weary and wanted it to END!
Good logistical point made by Parshall about Iwo Jima.
DL Giangreco is a good read on "Downfall" sourcing military plans both sides and Soviet archives. We had a completely separate and necassarilly secretive Lend Lease agreement with the USSR focused on Manchuria that included Liberty Ships and training merchant crews for them down to uniforms for the Soviet troops.
Richard Frank is also good but what Giangreco sees in the Japanese strategy of "Redoubt" to force negotiations might've been more viable than we'd like to admit depending on our casualties. Giangreco's book: "Hell to Pay" 2nd edition is pretty detailled in the preperations perhaps heavy towards the Japansee plans. I've yet to read Richard Frank past "Tower of Skulls" which I also recommend.
He also pointed out that the Emporer's directive made the Soviet advances in Manchuria as successful as it was as most troops in Manchuria were commanded by officers convinced by Hirohito's inner circle of spokesmen to retain fidelity to the Emporer's directive.
Great discussion!!!
Would make a great scifi episode.
People with good intentions uses a time machine to prevent the success of the US atomic bomb program.
Returns to the present to see the USSR in control of the world.
I often wonder if the bombs had not been dropped in 1945, exposing the general population the destructive power of nuclear weapons, would the Cold War have escalated to a full blown nuclear conflict?
If Truman had not used the bomb, Dewey would have been elected as President in 1948!
Truman would have been impeached and since there was no 25th amendment to replace the VP if he became President, the Speaker of the house would have become President, which would have been Sam Rayburn at the time.
Nah, Truman wouldn't have been impeached, (it was a different time), but he would have lost the confidence of the American people!@@johnharris6655
Sam Rayburn was the Speaker of the House in 1946! That would have one of the worst of the "Dixiecrats" even worse than LBJ 20years later!
Japan surrendered due to the atomic bomb. Japanese commanders wanted to fight to the death and take as many of the enemy with them as possible. The A-bomb made the Japanese leaders realize that the allies could destroy their country from the air without setting foot in Japan. Further resistance would be futile. The Japanese surrendered 6 days after the 2nd use of a nuclear weapon. Case closed.
This was great , so interesting.
My dad was in 1st Calvary Division. I wouldn't be chatting with you right now!
At the time of the surrender, my dad was sitting in the Philippines as part of the 5th Cav waiting to participate in the invasion. There is a good chance I and my 8 siblings wouldn't be here either.
no need to drop that bomb Japan would have surrendered within a few weeks
The Island of Kyushu was invaded in the 4th Century and Honshu in the 4-5th Century, by iron-armored Horseriders from the 3 Kingdoms from Iron Age Korea. See the book *Korean Impact on Japanese Culture: Japan’s Hidden History* by Covell, which examines Korean-Japanese relations from ancient prehistory up to the Japanese Colonial Period.
Jon's shirt messed up the german atomic program!
Best yet guys
A great channel
Was Mr. Marshall on the Drachinifel RUclips channel, his face and voice is familiar
Beautifully written!
Your best production yet, an incredible episode. I think the only thing you missed is that Chiang Kai-shek might've had more support to defeat Mao. A stretch I know but the communisation of Asia might not've happened.
A very good point. Had the Nationalists defeated the Communists, the Cold War may have also played out differently. Certainly Vietnam wouldn't have occurred.
What if Japan didn’t surrender after the second atomic bomb, and operation downfall has to proceed using atomic bombs as tactical nukes?
A third bomb was on the way out to be dropped. It was expected that there would be an extra bomb every few weeks.
The truth of the matter is that the A-Bombs would've been ineffectual to use as tactical weapons, except for destroying something like a strategic bridge or airfield. We would've just been irradiating our troops on the beaches for not much gain.
On 10 august 1945 Marshall ordered that future weapons be stockpiled for the invasion. The would notional used to create bridgeheads ashore. Essentially the target list was frozen after Nagasaki with Truman's knowledge.
i enjoy this show sooo much thank you
For those who are against the atomic bombs being dropped, here's something to seriously think about. If you had a father, grandfather, or great-grandfather fight in WWII (or would've become eligible for military service had the war lasted a couple of more years) and he was sent to fight in the invasion of Japan (or on the Japanese side, had to help defend Japan) and he dies, you don't exist. If the casualty estimates ended up being accurate or higher than expected, you end up having fewer boomers, fewer Gen Xers, fewer millennials, fewer Gen Zers, etc. as a result.
Had either one of my grandfathers been killed (one was in the war as a member of the Army Air Corps, the other would've been eligible for military service had the war lasted longer), I don't exist.
The "estimates" of million+ allied casualties are numbers plucked from the air by politicians, notably Truman. Actual estimates, like the Army estimate, were based on casualty RATES, with Army expecting a rate on Kyushu comparable to the battles of Phillipines/Manilla. For the Naval part of the fight onto Kyushu Nimitz estimated 10,000 casualties.
@@luketaper9401 The Japanese were known for refusing to give up, thus making the estimates legitimate.
Come for Parshall's exquisite wallpaper. Stay in spite of the "What if?" alternate history slop.
Casualty rates were in the 1M plus range. The bombs saved lives on both sides
A lot of average people don’t even know that the same time the bombs were dropped the Soviet Union invaded Japan.
Yeah that 1,2 combo coming in just 10 days of 2 nukes, a Soviet invasion, and the threat of more bombs was the only senerio where Japan surrendered without an invasion. Cant do it without one or the other
Its real simple folks, if you see a video with Jon Parshall you watch it
The one question I ask and rarely hear those who were against the dropping of the bombs is, 'If you're the President how many more POWs would have died and would you have let that happen?' because they were dying in droves.
If the Atomic Bombs had been not used, would there have been Godzilla-Movies in Japan?
As far as I know, the experience of those drops had been one of the major motivations for making the Godzilla movies in the first place.
The people that made that movie, or there parents, probably would have been dead.
Fascinating.
Also the dropping of the bombs demonstrated to Stalin that the US didn't need any help in defeating the Japanese and thus position the US in the Eastern Asia zone of influence.
My father served in the USN '44-'53. He was slated for Olympic.
I read that if the Soviets had invaded Hokkaido and moved south to Honshu, the US would have envisioned going straight to Coronet to cut the Soviet drive off.
"Sorry guys, we opted to lose 1 million of our own soldiers because we wanted to preserve the lives of the baby-murderers who blew up our port and tried to colonise their continent like it's the 1600s"
~Harry Alternate Truman
I'm with Jon and his comment about the effect of a potential blockade and when 1946 came, Japan would have been starving. Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech also referred to the bad domestic situation. I've heard one US military historian speculate that he was referring to the recent bad domestic rice harvest. Even before the war, Japan needed to import food. If their domestic production was lowered, combined with the strengthening allied blockade, they didn't have the food to feed their people and that was going to be felt almost immediately. You combined that with allied airpower destroying their infrastructure and their ability to move what food they had around, you are looking at mass starvation in parts of Japan. I don't see Japan having the literal strength to fight beyond 1946. Never mind the fact that their ability to produce weapons and ammunition would have been mostly destroyed before then. Just the numbers of Japanese that would have died massively outweigh those that died in the atomic bombings, never mind the numbers that would have died in areas still under Japanese occupation.
My father went into Navy, was in training as medic for the invasion of Japan. He younger by couple years my uncle that landed as Marine, Iwo Jima and his brother a pilot. If bombs not dropped and surrender, I might not be here.
I think the contribution of the British Pacific Fleet is terribly unstated in the pacific war. While Adm King didn't want us there he did come cap in hand asking us for an aircraft carrier when the US navy was down to one serviceable carrier, Saratoga, after the loss of Hornet at the battle of Santa Cruz. So in 1943 HMS Victorious then operates with US Navy as USS Robin, for which Nimitz was very grateful and gave us all the logistic support we needed, which gave British FAA pilots the necessary experience for working with the US Navy, flying Hellcats, Avengers and Corsairs. Yes the British saw the political and military necessity of re-establishing themselves in the old empire but that was only part of it, defeating Japan was the prime concern.
I think they would have transitioned from total control to bypassing groups dug into a mountainous region, you do not get bogged down and casualties with a Saipan or Philippines after the fall of Manilla. They would have attacked from multiple vectors over the first 6 months and pursued the most favorable paths to objectives like Tokyo. Other than those dug in troops with supplies, the resistance of each month and step will get weaker, they were running out of modern weapons. Other than dug in pockets the front-line resistance would be less each month and be goal oriented to take Tokyo and several other large cities. Once you control transportation and the major cities you starve out the pockets.
More cold hard discussion with these two guests please.
One thing not said here is the the US asked the Soviets to intervene against Japan at the Yalta onference in February 1945. An agreemnent was made for the USSR to intervene commencing on August 15, 1945. The first bomb was used on the 6th and the Soviets moved their offensive date forward to the 9th. The scale of the offensive and the combat strength of the two opposing forces was notable. The Japanese were practically unable to stop the Soviet heavy tanks rolling forward and the Manchurian Japanese army was practically destroyed within a week. This did have an effect on the Japanese decision to surrender. They wisely realised that the Soviets may be given an occupation zone in Japan itself, something they were very worried about. The western Allies also changed their unconditional surrender demand to concede that the Emperor should be allowed to stay on as Japans god like ruler, if in name only. This concession helped change the Japanese mindset on continuing the war.
My Dad was in The 11th Airborne Division joint in April 1945, Stationed in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Tōhoku region. He served in Hiroshima during cleanup, returned to Sendai in early 1946 then on to Sapporo, Hokkaido until 1947 when US Army after accepting him in to OCS sent him home due to only being 17. Yes he joined at 15, by 16 he was a Cpl in the MP's and a parachute rigger. Does anyone trust a 16 year old to be a Cop or rig their parachute today? let along make them an NCO. Different time.
They were expecting so many wounded that the army made half million purple heart medals. 80 years later we are still using that stockpile.
Austin Beach
UK, Commonwealth & Empire
Was bigger by itself than all the beaches of D-Day put together
The actual mechanism of the Japanese decision to surrender is still not widely known. It is true that the energy of the abomb, 18k tons, is larger than say a 1000 bomber raid, say 3k tons, the effective damage is not hugely different. The Japanese were aware of theory of the bomb, and also that it is very difficult resource intensive to produce enough fissile material.
Hence after the first bomb, it was agreed it was an A-bomb, the hard core continue the war faction staked their reputation that another bomb would not happen for months. When the second bomb occurred only days later, they lost face, and that gave opening for the surrender faction to sway the emperor
Thank you for this video. I conforms what I have said/ment for a long time that because of the willingness of the Japanese people to die for Japan/Emperor, the cost in both military and civilian lives would have bin much higher.
The problem with 'simple men'...many simple men made a decision in November that is ultimately going to bring massive grief to them.
If japan had ended up blockaged and firebombed eould there been an orginized goverment left to surender? For example the Tokyo area imported over 98 percent of its food and between subs cutting off coastal shipping and bombing raids cutting the rail network there would have been bmass starvation and civil uprisings
As the speakers said in the beginning, there was more to the equation than the Japanese. Over 200k allied civilians in Japan, 750k of allied civilians dieing per month in surrounding countries.
Surely the Soviets would keep rolling on to Paris if a non-trivial component of the armies in the European Theatre were redirected.
You are right, I never thought about that scenario.
Except VE Day happened in May of 45, and Downfall was scheduled in August of 45
@@scottl9660Downfall was scheduled for the Beginning and Summer of 46’ at least the Tokyo portion that needed the most troops
There was a tv show in the 1990’s called “Sliders” that I liked where the main characters traveled through alternate histories. I remember seeing one episode exactly like this. No atomic bombs. Japanese invasion. Japan was split in two just like Korea is in our world with a communist North and an Allied capitalist south.
Agreed!
Why do you keep deleting my post?
Population of Japan in 1945 was 75 million, not 100 million
Didn't they mention that? I thought I heard that in the video.
The Japanese themselves used the 100 million number.
@@stephenyoung3721 Yes, and we could add they had already demonstrated they were more than willing to sacrifice the lives of their "colonies" like the Koreans and "marginally Japanese" like the Okinawans.
I think they just mentioned the nr 70 million !?
The 100 million was most likely hyperbole, especially given how detached Japanese high command were from reality by then
The fact is that of the next 9 atomic bombs in production, only one went nuclear. The other 8 were duds. Trying to use more bombs would have been embarrassing, and would have encouraged magic thinking among Japanese leaders.
I've long been a fan of a genre of writing called "Alternative History" or "Counterfactualism". You make one change to a historic timeline, the change being as small and as creible as possible, and then speculate on what that change wrought.
On this exact subject, I've read quite a few such speculative pieces. One posited that the US went ahead with the first part of Downfall, Olympic, which was the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan proper. It turned out that our intel drastically underestimated the number of Japanese troops on the island, with there being a new parity between the number of attackers and defenders. This is not a recipe for a successful invasion. The piece envisioned a stalemate lasting long enough for the Soviet Union to expand their toehold on Sakhalin Island and invade the Japanese home islands. At this point, invaded from north and south, I think the Japanese would have been forced to surrender, with the result that there likely would have been a Communist Northern Japan and a Free Southern Japan with Tokyo being partitioned the way Berlin was.
The second piece I recall dealt with an expansion of the strategic bombing campaign, including additional firebombing where appropriate (although by August 1945 there weren't many cities that hadn't been firebombed). The Inland Sea had been mined to the point that ship traffic was virtually at a standstill. The Japanese home islands could not grow enough food to feed their populace, and the ways by which food (and fuel) was transported was becoming increasingly fragile. Post-war evaluation of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign found that, as devastating to infrastructure as the real campaign had been, it would have been even more devastating had we concentrated on Japan's limited railroad network. This would have brought down Japan quickly, but was likely to have the result of causing a multi-year famine among the Japanese population.
While I like Jonathan Parshall's idea of the Americans skipping Kyushu and landing directly on the Kanto Plain near Tokyo, it wasn't gonna happen. The Americans insisted on a plodding, steady march from Guadalcanal to New Guinea, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa with air attacks from the Mariana Islands (Saipan, Tinian, etc) wearing down the Japanese Home Islands forces. Iwo Jima had been utterly unprepared if the Navy and Marines had landed there in October or November 1944, but the plodding approach delayed the pretty obvious landing there until February 1945. Note that any Japanese staff officer with a map, a ruler, and an understanding of the Allied aircraft ranges, could figure out which islands with airfields were the next invasion targets. That's why Okinawa and Iwo Jima had such stout emplacements and why American casualties were approaching 1:1 at times on those islands. Kyushu was the next, obvious and logical target and would have been covered in pillboxes and assorted entrenchments before November 1, 1945.
Fortunately, the Japanese had an idiotic plan for trying to hold the Kyushu beaches by using mobile forces and resisting at the water's edge again, something they had quit doing at Okinawa, with great effect. Given the massive air and naval gunfire superiority of the Allied forces striking Kyushu, the Japanese soldiers would have been utterly decimated, along with their vehicles trying to make "mobility" happen under the Big Blue Blanket of Hellcats and Corsairs.
The biggest nightmare scenario was the 10,000 Japanese aircraft lurking in Korea, ready to cross the narrow Sea of Japan and swoop down as kamikazes on the Allied invasion fleet. Perhaps Halsey or Spruance could have taken the fast carriers to Korea and massacred Japanese aircraft there as they had so many times before. Still, too many would have been able to fight another day.
I always thought that landing on Kyushu would be the absolute stupidest plan they could possibly come up with, with the exception of exacerbating the stupidity by nuking the beaches first. When I looked at this issue, that was the first thing that jumped out. certainly launch a fake invasion there to draw off Japanese defenders against empty transports supported by the land based aircaft, but the real landing in Kochi on Shikoku. A protected port on a small island. set up air and naval patrols to inhibit reinforcements coming across, while the Seabees set up airfields for the Army fighters to transfer too. Then take the small island and you have an unsinkable carrier right in the heart of Japan.
41:50 Yes, looks like Japan 'over-fortified' Kyushu, which could have been flipped against them. You could lock down 800-900K of likely best remaining troops & equipment in Kyshu. Then, submarines & aircraft to deny any sizable retrieval of troops from Kyshu. Plus, such high troop & civilian numbers in Kyshu are not likely well supplied for a long hold out, and they will degrade by starvation. Then, focus on landing &/or localized starvation elsewhere.
Overall, this is a nice 'what if' discussion. I would have liked a bit more conceptual detail on the ground and naval actions likely seen in the subject Kyushu invasion (& perhaps on the Kioto concept).
A lot of what if's throughout history.
The Japanese commander on Okinawa knew that he could not defeat the US troops. But he could inflict as many casualties as possible to give the US commanders pause about invading.
IIRC there were so many Purple Heart medals made in anticipation of huge US casualties that decades later they have not used all of them.
Truman has the dilemma that if he sends in the troops and there are horrific casualties and the public learns that the US had a weapon that could have avoided that (the better thee than me viewpoint), the American public would have been furious that US lives were lost when they didn't have to be.
So his decision comes down to do I sacrifice Japanese lives or American lives.
The 3rd A bomb would have been ready by August 19th. Read Richard Frank's "Downfall"
An excellent analysis. I'd never thought about the hostages before: the civilian populations of the occupied territories and the POWs. An immediate forced capitulation saved millions and even tens of millions of lives. Add to that the Japanese culture that surrender was a disgrace: in Okinawa, thousands of civilians committed suicide. The same would likely have happened in Japan. Finally, the big unanswered question: why were civilian targets chosen? That is why today the atomic bombs and the firebombings are widely regarded as atrocities. It's a pity you skirted that.
Surprised they do not mention Korea, a war that drags on till November means Soviets have taken all of Korea, amphibious ability to take Hokkaido is debatable, but on the mainland nothing is stopping them.
Great shows and love the people but the maps they use always seem way too big. The map john brought was much better
There would have been MILLIONS OF CASUALTIES. DOING THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE OF ALL, FOR ALL.
As much as I respect Jon Parshall's opinion, I don't agree with his perspective on the impact of Russia invading Manchuria. IMO the atomic bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki (as awful as they were) does not significantly impact Japan's strategic situation in August 1945 - they still can't prevent the US from bombing their cities (either atomically or normally) & they have not lost any additional territory. In fact, they still "control" more territory on August 8 1945 than they did in Dec. '41.
The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, however, does significantly impact Japan's strategic situation - the Japanese lose the ability to draw upon the Kwangtung/China area armies for reinforcements & they lose the ability to gather raw materials from China & Korea (& technically SE Asia) that can help sustain the home islands. All ability to effectively communicate with their armies in SE Asia & China are cut off with the loss of Manchuria & Korea. The Sea of Japan now is easier for US submarines to access. And the Japanese lose what they initially believed would be an honest broker in any peace talks with the Allies. I think the Japanese leadership on August 8 still think they have a decent hand to play in forcing the Americans to the negotiating table but they realize on Aug 9/10 that their hand is no longer sufficiently strong enough.
Was operation unthinkable covered before?
yes
There is a book titled "Downfall' that covers the subject.
Probably more interesting question is what if after two bombs dropped Japan would not surrender? They would have realized that Americans had been bluffing as there were no more bombs. Quite possibly the taboo of atomic weapons would have never been established as other countries could think: look at them, they absorbed two hits and fought on.
So the A-bomb decision was the resolution to history's largest trolley problem.
You really don't know your British history if you think that Britain would have taken the opportunity to reestablish its empire in the area.
The Empire had been bleeding Britain dry well before WW1 due to changing mindsets, it became the British people's responsibility to raise up and improve all the countries in the empire. The British built and staffed schools and hospitals in India and other countries, it was costing far more than Britain was gaining. There was a ban on claik8ng new territories for Britain, but British officers ignored the order and did it anyway. They knew that the British government would be forced to publicly praise them and reward them, also it advanced their military careers.
Pre WW1 Britain was done with empire, it was only old school die hards that wanted to maintain the empire no matter the cost.
A larger map of Japan would have been more helpful.