Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 6 & 9 August 1945 respectively...and thank you God, without them I wouldn't be here and neither would several MILLION Americans...

The following is not directed at the Japanese people...it is directed at our own (supposedly American) idiots...

Oh and I am fed up with some so-called Americans expressing guilt and remorse...

1) They started it...FACT!
2) The bombs saved more lives in the long run...FACT! *
3) More people were killed in the firebombing of Tokyo, by 330 planes, than were killed at Hiroshima or Nagasaki by 1 plane and 1 bomb...FACT!
4) What do you think the PTSD factor would be amongst surviving US troops who would have faced mass waves of trained and armed women and children dedicated to their destruction?
5) Feel guilt? Look at how the Japanese treated allied POW's and concurred civilian peoples...Livestock in a slaughterhouse fared much better...FACT!

No, sorry, I hold no animosity to the Japanese people today, what's past is past, but don't give me any bleeding heart bullshit about killing them during the war either.

* A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.

The Australian government of the day, which wasn't party to the A-bomb secret, anticipated the war to not end anytime before mid to late 1948 even with the planned 1946 invasion of Japan. The allied (Australian, British, Canadian, etc.) casualties which would have included alone would have been horrendous.

The ferocity in which the Japanese fought in defence, especially during the battle for Okinawa, led military planners to realise just how difficult a land invasion of the Home Islands would be. I have spoken to two chaps who were involved in the planning and they both told me that they were basically anticipating having to kill most of the population of Japan.
The atomic bombs did, indeed, save lives.
Arguably, they also prevented the looming war between the free world and the Soviet Union, but that's another story.

ANZAC wrote:

The Australian government of the day, which wasn't party to the A-bomb secret, anticipated the war to not end anytime before mid to late 1948 even with the planned 1946 invasion of Japan.  The allied (Australian, British, Canadian, etc.) casualties which would have included alone would have been horrendous.

Perhaps I misunderstood your innuendo ANZAC however, the USA was part of the allied forces in WWII, and no non-USA ground forces were in the plans for Operation Downfall. That's a fact and it wasn't meant as a slight to anyone...  Orders of Battle for Operation Downfall

(1) "American planners took no note [initially] of the possibility that [non-U.S.] Allied ground troops might participate in the invasion of the Kanto Plain. They published plans indicating that assault, follow-up, and reserve units would all come from U.S. forces. [However, as] the Coronet plans were being refined during the summer of 1945, all the major Allied countries offered ground forces, and a debate developed at the highest levels of command over the size, mission, equipment, and support of these contingents."

(2) "Only American troops would be engaged initially in central Honshu, but plans were made for the use of Australian, Canadian, British, and French divisions in subsequent stages of the campaign. They would be employed in case Japanese resistance should continue even after the heart of their Homeland was in American hands."

(3) "if necessary, follow up operations after Tokyo would have been initiated in the south, central, and north of Japan with US troops from Europe who had taken leave in the US -- only Air Force, air field construction, and service units had gone from Europe directly to the Pacific. And troops from Allied countries would be available."

(1) Operation Downfall: Planned Invasion of the Islands of Japan in World War II

(2) CHAPTER XIII "DOWNFALL" THE PLAN FOR THE INVASION OF JAPAN

(3) World War II in the Pacific  Operation Downfall : Olympic and Coronet  The Invasion of Japan

With regards to casualties...(4) "Casualty figures were a guess that changed with time. There are sufficient numbers available to support any post-war position that any author chooses to take. Low numbers are quoted as reasons to do the invasion, 125,000 for Olympic and to end the war. High numbers, one million US casualties for Downfall, are quoted to justify the A-bomb and end the war. Typically, 25% of casualties are deaths. On average, 5 Japanese soldiers died for each American death."

(4) World War II in the Pacific  Operation Downfall : Olympic and Coronet  The Invasion of Japan

kilogulf59 wrote:

ANZAC wrote:

... The allied (Australian, British, Canadian, etc.) casualties which would have included alone would have been horrendous.

(1) ... [However, as] the Coronet plans were being refined during the summer of 1945, all the major Allied countries offered ground forces, and a debate developed at the highest levels of command over the size, mission, equipment, and support of these contingents."[/b][/i]

(2) "Only American troops would be engaged initially in central Honshu, but plans were made for the use of Australian, Canadian, British, and French divisions in subsequent stages of the campaign. They would be employed in case Japanese resistance should continue even after the heart of their Homeland was in American hands." ...

With regards to casualties...(4) [i][b]"Casualty figures were a guess that changed with time. ...

Admittedly, I could have worded my comment a bit better. I did not mean to exclude US forces in my comment.  I assumed that part of the equation was a given, and as such understood.

That said, I will offer that casualty estimates before an operation are always a 'guess'.  From experience, they are rarely, very rarely, less than the best guess.  I would also say that one needs to consider whether or not the planners for the invasion of Japan may have used the Normandy Invasion as a benchmark.  If so, that would have led to optimistic and probably unrealistic expectations.  Different enemy, different mindset, different geography would have been hugely significant despite the war then having one theatre of active operations.  That said, the bitterly contested and high loss campaigns of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, although much smaller in scale, may have been more realistic benchmarks.

Any assumption that the invasion of Japan would not involve non-US allied forces is historically unrealistic despite what may be written.  That at least is my firm opinion. Your quote in 2 above, 'Only American troops ... initially ... Australian, Canadian, British and French ... in subsequent stages ...', would seem to confirm my opinion.

Attn other forum members: please excuse us two Type A's playing...boys will be boys you know

ANZAC wrote:

Admittedly, I could have worded my comment a bit better. I did not mean to exclude US forces in my comment.  I assumed that part of the equation was a given, and as such understood.

Yes, well the term “Allies” alone would've been a given and, as such, understood....the unintentional omission from the list can be questionable at best.

“Tone”, the bane of the written word...Anyway, water under the bridge.

Yes, the causality rate were truly guesswork and several models were used. They would be high no matter how one looks at it and would depend upon the Japanese civilians will to carry on. You can defeat the military nonetheless, you cannot concur a people who will simply not be concurred...without exterminating them.

As far as other allied ground forces are concerned, their lack of planned initial use wasn't a question of politics or fighting ability. It was a problem with doctrine, and, mainly, supply. I feel that combat on the home islands would have been akin to Stalingrad at 90 miles per hour on a massive scale...under such circumstances, whipping together multinational forces, who have never teamed together, could significantly raise the causality rates. I am also certain that any GI or Marine, who had fought with the Japanese, would have welcomed any and all help from anyone or not have minded if they were completely left out of it...

(a) “Only American troops would be engaged initially in central Honshu, but plans were made for the use of Australian, Canadian, British, and French divisions in subsequent stages of the campaign. They would be employed in case Japanese resistance should continue even after the heart of their Homeland was in American hands.”

(b) “With the exception of a part of the British Pacific Fleet, Operation Downfall was to be a strictly American operation. It called for using the entire Marine Corps, the entire Pacific Navy, elements of the 7th Army Air Force, the 8 Air Force (recently redeployed from Europe), 10th Air Force and the American Far Eastern Air Force. More than 1.5 million combat soldiers, with 3 million more in support or more than 40% of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 - would be directly involved in the two amphibious assaults. Casualties were expected to be extremely heavy.”

(c) “The Australian government requested the inclusion of Australian Army units in the first wave of Olympic, but this was rejected by US commanders. Following negotiations among the western Allied powers, it was decided that a Commonwealth Corps, initially made up of infantry divisions from the Australian, British and Canadian armies would be used in Coronet. Reinforcements would have been available from those countries, as well as other parts of the Commonwealth. MacArthur blocked proposals to include an Indian Army division, because of differences in language, organization, composition, equipment, training, and doctrine. He also recommended that the corps should be organized along the lines of a US corps, should use only US equipment and logistics, and should train in the US for six months before deployment; these suggestions were accepted. A British officer, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Keightley, had been nominated to lead the Commonwealth Corps. The Australian government questioned the appointment of an officer with no experience fighting the Japanese, and suggested that Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead, an Australian who had been carrying out the New Guinea and Borneo campaigns, should be appointed. The war ended before the details of the corps were finalized.”

(a) CHAPTER XIII "DOWNFALL" THE PLAN FOR THE INVASION OF JAPAN
(b) An Invasion Not Found in the History Books - Brig Gen R. Clements USAF ret
(c) Day, David (1992). Reluctant Nation: Australia and the Allied Defeat of Japan, 1942–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-553242-5.
Skates, John Ray (1994). The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-87249-972-0.
Spector, Ronald H. (1985). Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan. Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-74101-7.

Here's an excellent map of Downfall...

Mate, your comment about 'whipping together multinational forces who had never teamed together" ignores a huge chunk of WWII history including the end of the North African Campaign, the invasions of Sicily, Anzio, Salerno, Normandy, Southern France, much of the Italian Campaign, the liberation of Europe, Casino, Market Garden, New Guinea, and a good deal of the Southwestern Pacific Campaign. Australian and British naval forces were involved in the Philippine Campaign as well as much of the later island hopping leading up to and including Okinawa.

As for MacArthur, a man who was not above denigrating the successes of others along his path to promote himself, his account of the war in the Pacific reads like fiction when it is compared to the works of others who were involved and there and credible, genuine historians. Patton and Montgomery feuded over who was going to be 'best boy', and Blamey, depending upon the historian, may not have been much better, but MacArthur took self-promotion to new heights. I offer that the only thing that kept MacArthur from being cashiered after so badly bungling the defence of the Philippines was a genuine effort by Roosevelt, et al to politically-spin a military disaster into a mere set-back.


For his part MacArthur disliked Blamey, who was in MacArthur's opinion a "non-professional Australian drunk". The two squabbled like petulant children, whether it was in close proximity or from a distance. The problem was accentuated by the fact that MacArthur had no choice but appoint Blamey as commander of Allied land forces among the SWPA staff, including Americans.
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OK ANZAC...you win...