If the Japanese had retreated to the main islands, would the Allies still have planned for invasion?

Great Debates
101

Repeating the inquiry.

Because I think it would be a bloody mess on one side, and an absolute catastrophe on the other.

Cite. The Japanese had given up trying to stop the air raids, to conserve fuel for the expected invasion. However -

The US was not going to lose.

And they weren’t going to be discouraged, either. They found out that the Japanese would fight to the last man in Okinawa, and expected the same for an invasion of mainland Japan - but they were planning to go ahead and invade anyway.

The US was going to finish the war, once and for all. Fortunately, the A-bomb came along, and shifted the calculus even more - from 'hundreds of thousands of Allied deaths vs. tens of millions of Japanese deaths" to “every man, woman and child in every city in Japan, one after another after another, vs. NO Allied deaths.” Not a glorious death for the Emperor, taking your enemy with you in honorable defeat. Watching your cities go up in radioactive flame, one after another - and there is not one damn thing you can do about it.

Regards,
Shodan

102

Was it Admiral Halsey who said, “When we are finished with them, the only place Japanese will be spoken is in Hell”, or Nimitz?

103

Halsey.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Frederick_Halsey,_Jr.
Nimitz seemed like a less colorful person.

104

Totally sounds like something the rough spoken Halsey would say, though I don’t know if it’s just an anecdote or ever confirmed.

105

I’ve read that he was overheard to mutter this when his command returned to Pearl Harbor the evening after the attack.

He did say, in a 1944 news conference, that “The only good Jap is a Jap who’s been dead for six months.” He then went on to say that he was committed to creating lots and lots of good Japs.

106

That totally sounds like him as well. He was often, um, colorful in his language and speech.

107

Just wanted to mention that this “friendship” had already been fraying as far back as the Versailles Conference after WWI and the subsequent 5:5:3 naval agreement that left Japan contained as a naval force inferior to the British and Americans. Japanese imperialists resented this and were starting to push in the 1920s and 1930s for “Asia for Asians” (which of course meant Japan as the colonial power conquering and subjugating Asia).

Then there was anger in America over the Mukden incident and the Japanese takeover of Manchuria in 1931, following by Japan attacking China and committing atrocities there (Japanese planes sinking the U.S. gunboat Panay just inflamed things further).

Add in Pearl Harbor, killing of U.S. prisoners of war, the Bataan Death March etc. and there is absolutely no way the U.S. would’ve stopped short of total victory even if the Japanese had retreated from all their colonies back to the home islands and promised to be nice.

108

The USA convinced Great Britain to end a treaty with Japan.I believe this increased Japanese animosity with both countries.

109

Not how it happened. Canada convinced the rest of the Empire, based upon wanting goodwill with the United States. America wasnt even at the Imperial Conference of 1921 , being as it wasnt part of the Empire.

110

[hijack]Unfortunately, the view that it was just the atomic bombs which ended the war is prevalent, but it’s only part of the story. It’s pretty well documented that the Soviet entry into the war was also a significant factor. Some historians believe that the Soviet entry was actually more important and the bombs were not a factor, While I have read their arguments, I can’t see how the two factors can be separated. The Japanese themselves talk about the “twin shocks” of both events.

The faction of the Big Six members of the War Council which was opposed to surrender had been holding out while they were waiting for their “Hail Mary pass” attempt – to have the Soviets negotiate a better ending to the war than a complete surrender. The Soviet entry into the war meant that they wouldn’t get better terms and the issue was forced.

111

The animosity predated that. Some Japanese people feel that the United States betrayed Japan during the negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.

112

Teddy Roosevelt and the Portsmouth treaty. I’d forgotten about that.
Thanks, Little Nemo.

113

That’s just Soviet propaganda, like the fact they won WW2 all by themselves, since they took the most casualties. :rolleyes:

While it is true that the entry of USSR ended one hope for a negotiated peace, Military losses wasnt going to do it. The Bomb allowed the Emperor to ask for peace, since it was something new.

114

I believe the Russians won WWII. Well, in more ways than one. They killed the most Germans, and kept the countries they “liberated” from the Nazis.
I do wish they hadn’t been given US aid, so that the Russians and Germans had killed each other.

The only good thing about Russians is that they killed a lot of Germans.
The only good thing about Germans is that they killed a lot of Russians.

I believe that the bomb and the fact that the Russians wouldn’t negotiate for terms, and would indeed invade Japan were equal factors in forcing a Japanese surrender. Fortunately all the Russians got were some Japanese islands they still argue over, and North Korea.

115

Forgive me for not checking back. Very simply the Americans were very war-weary and were being force to play the Japanese game. The American manpower shortage was getting very bad by 1945.
Further, consider the kamikazes. They worked and the US Navy had no real solution. They were first-generation cruise missiles. Okinawa was bad enough, CORONET would have faced four times as many suicide planes, and offered four times as many targets.
You need to remember the Japanese path to “victory” involved the Americans invading. That was their plan. Furthermore, it basically worked.
The Japanese got a much sweeter deal than the Germans. A deal was done that the Emperor would not be hung by his neck as he so thoroughly deserved.

116

Like i said, my Dad served in Mac’s HQ, the they were gung-ho for the invasion.

Nope, the navy solved them with destroyer pickets and a squad of fighters up all the time. Later, all the IJN could do was damage a destroyer. They were no longer such a menace.

Not at all, their plan was to damage the American fleet so bad we would be forced to negotiate.

The “deal” wasnt spelled out. And the Emperor was known to have been a figurehead- many Japanese leaders were convicted of warcrimes.

117

I posted my previous reply in haste and it shows. I was heading out the door to the office.

I maintain that the invasions of Japan would have failed. Let me be more verbose.

Up until this point, the Americans had the advantage of mobility. The Island Campaign showed the American could avoid Japanese strong-points, letting them sit in isolation This held American (and perhaps Japanese) casualties down. But upon reaching the Home Islands, this advantage failed. Now we had to play the Japanese’ game in their home court.

The Japanese had a strategy to avoid unconditional surrender. It was the model taught to them by the Chinese. It was the model the learned in the Island Campaign. They intended to prolong the fight and inflict unacceptable losses on the Americans. The American plan was more vague. Invade Kyushu (OLYMPIC) in November 1945 in order to gain bases needed for the invasion of Honshu (CORONET) in March 1946. The goal of the invasion of the Tokyo Plain was to take the capital and then something, something, something.

OLYMPIC would have been about four times the size of the invasion of Okinawa. That battle took 100 days and cost (the Americans) 13,000 killed and 37,000 injured for a round number of 50,000 casualties. (Note about a quarter of casualties are killed, or the number of casualties are three times the number killed.) Roughly we can say the OLYMPIC attack would have killed and hurt 200,000 Americans, four times the butcher’s bill on Okinawa.

That is the best-case scenario. On Okinawa we had a numerical advantage. It was a small island and we basically had to kill most every Japanese soldier on it. At Kyushu the Japanese had as many defenders as we had attackers. These defenders were dug in, but once the land battle started they could be expected to attack the American forces for many months.

The Japanese Navy had gone away except for some small boats and 100 submarines. The Japanese Army had just about unlimited people. Less understood is that the Japanese Army and Naval Air Forces (they were working very well together) also had baskets of airplanes. Production of suicide aircraft did not end until the war did. Training of pilots continued. Aircraft and crews returned from China every day. American intelligence missed this at Okinawa, estimates were of 90 aircraft on Formosa, really there were 700. For Olympic the number of aircraft available would have been overwhelming.
They adopted a new strategy for OLYMPIC. Rather than going for the warships as they had previously, now their main targets were troopships. At Okinawa 36 US ships were sunk about 400 were damaged. If we multiply by four we get 140 sunk and 1,600 damaged. That would, I suppose be something like a Japanese victory. I admit those numbers seem high. Cut them in half. It still looks like a Japanese win.

The Japanese hoped to kill 20% of the landing force while they were still at sea. Just 10% would have been about 76,000 killed. That also looks like a Japanese win. Remember Okinawa was considered very bloody and it cost only 50,000 casualties (dead + injured). Just landing the landing force might have been an Okinawa all by itself.
All of the above ignores the atomic weapons. OK, let us include them. Marshall famously observed the impact of the atomic bombs was mostly physiological. It gave those who wanted to surrender an excuse to do so. Of course a large faction wanted to fight on anyway. What if they did?

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August the Americans would have horded their bombs, saving them for a November OLYMPIC. I have seen numbers that indicate they might have had six. Two for each of the landing zones. Had they been used on the defenders, the landings themselves would have been easier. (Of course nobody knew much about the effects of radiation.) But such attacks would not have bothered the better, more mobile units in holes further inland.
You indicate a belief that the Navy had solved the kamikaze problem. I see no indication of this. Fighter aircraft from Okinawa would have provided a heavy cover, but I suspect they still would have gotten through. I am eager to be educated on this. The kamikazes were first-generation cruise missiles and they still give sailors nightmares. While the US had gotten better in the months since Okinawa, so had the Japanese.
OK, there is a more complete discussion I ought to have posted this morning. I was limited by my need to go to work. Now I am heading off to dinner. I hope I was clearer with this note.

118

The Soviets are also partially responsible for starting WWII through helping Germany rearm, supplying Germany raw materials and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact - Wikipedia that allowed the two countries to attack and divide Poland and allowed Germany to invade the West without the fear of a two front war. The Soviets never returned their conquered territory.

The Soviets did the majority of fighting against the Nazis. But they also enabled WWII. And for the peoples of Eastern Europe, WWII didnt end till 1989.

119

The British declared war to liberate Poland, but the Russians kept it. In hindsight, I believe the Allies should have let Germany and Russia slug it out without lend lease. At the end of the war, there were too many Russians in Europe for the USA and Britain to retake Eastern Europe. I’ve read that at the end of hostilities, cargo ships in route to the Soviet Union were turned around mid ocean and steamed homeward.

120

Why the decision for invasion instead of blockade and an atom bomb every month on troop concentrations?