My father joined the Marines in 1945 as a 17 year old in hopes of getting into the war before the end. From the time he joined until the surrender he was being prepped to be part of the invasion. There was a good chance he would be in one of the waves. I have read since that the tactic was to have mostly green troops led by vets in the first waves since veteran troops know how insane it is to be in a contested amphibious landing. There were also plans to bring in the Airborne Divisions from Europe to drop in ahead of an invasion. There is a good chance I never would have existed if the invasion went as planned.
They were hesitant to surrender after TWO atomic bombs were dropped on them. And the Emperor himself (remember their GOD) had to fight to get even THAT done, with a failed coup in the process.
Given that and all the previous history of WWII, IMO anybody that thinks there was anything other than an extremely remote chance of anything else besides massive carnage before they surrendered (if they would even do that for that matter) in a conventional land war is engaged in wishful thinking.
Also, remember in a land war/invasion, they could make the US PAY and PAY hard for their victory…so there would always be a chance we would get tired of the carnage before they did…and if we didn’t, well, they would take as many of us white devils with us as they could.
The atomic bombs ended that calculus. At best we risk a handful of pilots and a plane for every town we erase.
a lot of US troops in Europe were getting ready to invade Japan. This was shown in Band of Brothers mini series on HBO. They were not going to use just guys already in the Pacific theater.
Me too. My paternal grandfather was an Army tank commander at some training base (Ft. Bragg?) , and was tagged in late 1944 to go to the west coast to begin crew training on amphibious tractors. He would literally have been in the first waves to hit the beach in one of the two big invasions. Luckily, we used the atomic weapons, and he never had to actually ship out from Ft. Ord.
The point is, we know that they surrendered after sustaining the level of casualties resulting from two atom bombs. If our claim is that a land invasion would have resulted in a much higher level of casualties, we certainly can’t state as a fact that they would have suffered that much higher level rather than surrender; the known facts seem to suggest otherwise.
The other point, of course, is that the comparison assumes only two possibilities; dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which actually happened, and a land invasion. There were, of course, other possibilities; it was not a simple binary. Those seeking to justify the dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki do so by comparing it with another possibility which, plausibly, could have had a much higher death toll. But once you realise that they have selected that comparator precisely because it could have had a much higher death toll, the persuasive force of the comparison is much diminished.
They surrendered a week after the USA destroyed two cities and killed tens of thousands, flattened infrastructure and basically removed those cities from the map - with a single bomb apiece.
This was a quantum jump (sorry) from warfare that they were prepared to fight. They had ships, planes, men explosives; they could fight with those for months or years, they could hope to bring the Americans to a sort of stalemate where it was too expensive to invade and they would accept something less than unconditional surrender.
What they could not do (although some wanted to) was fight a war where the enemy simply hammered wherever they felt like with a giant flyswatter with no great danger to themselves. Only the most fanatic saw any honor in the equivalent of marching out onto the battlefield to be mowed down without a chance.
The atomic bomb gave the Japanese an “easy out” without completely losing face. In fact, they managed to wheedle one concession, that the emperor was not punished.
Yes, there were plenty of other options. There were other factors too. The war was a major drain on US resources. To spend a year or three laying siege to some islands, grinding them down and fighting off submarines and kamikazes, maintaining ten-thousand mile supply lines, was an option. it probably was not seriously considered. Accepting a negotiated “truce” or conditional surrender, after Pearl Harbour, was probably not an option. Plus, it ran counter to the Big Three agreement. Stalin had ground his army to mincemeat capturing Berlin to hold up his end, he wouldn’t be happy if the USA wimped out in the east; and he would probably send his army to take as much of Japan as he could get away with - presumably including the north island.
Given the attitude of the Japanese government and military, a negotiated surrender in their mind meant call it a draw, they get to keep their army, no punishment or repercussions, they could walk away with their head high. How would that play in Peoria? Over 20 million people across the world died in WWII, from the Philippines to London the world was decimated and destroyed; the Allies were not in a forgiving mood, and not prepared to let a foe walk away to regroup and try again in a few decades. the path from WWI to WWII was probably fresh in their minds too.
The Japanese leadership, however, was prepared to commit national suicide rather than surrender. Since the end of 1944 the propaganda slogan ichioku gyokusai (literally 100 million shattered jewels, figuratively the 100 million (i.e. the entire Japanese people) die together) was endlessly drummed into the civilian population’s heads.
And what other possibility would have resulted in a lower death toll? Consider what not dropping the bomb and not invading would have entailed: the continued firebombing of Japanese cities and the blockade of the island by submarines and mines aimed at causing starvation. Japan cannot and could not in 1945 feed itself, it is and was dependent upon large food imports. The mining of Japanese harbors, which proved highly successful made not qualms about what it was intended to do, it was named Operation Starvation. Had the war just continued on its course without an invasion or the dropping of the atomic bombs, millions would have died from starvation and bombing. The comparator (invasion) wasn’t chosen because it would have resulted in a higher death toll, not invading would also have resulted in a much higher death toll.
Well, dropping the bomb, but not on Hiroshima or Nagasaki was a possibility that was considered, wasn’t it? And it can’t be beyond the wit of man to think of other options.
Note: I’m not taking any position here on whether droppoing the bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki was, or was not, morally justified. I’m just pointing out that a comparison with just one other what-if speculation, chosen because it allows the projection of an even higher death toll, isn’t a particularly strong argument to support justification.
When entire cities were being burned to the ground on a daily basis and Japan was facing the death by starvation of millions of its people, why on earth would the atomic bombs not be dropped on cities? Bear in mind that 1) the firebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945 killed far more people than either atomic bomb; it killed between 75,000-200,000 people and rendered 1,000,000 homeless (bolding mine):
and 2)even after the dropping of both bombs and the entry of the Soviet Union into the war the military remained opposed to surrender; the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War remained deadlocked 3-3, only the personal appeal of Hirohito expressing his desire to accept surrender that caused the 3 opposed to agree to the surrender. Even after that, there was an attempted coup d’état to prevent the broadcasting of Hirohito’s speech accepting the Potsdam Declaration, place Hirohito under house arrest and continue the war.
I suppose I should also mention 3) just how bloodthirsty the American public was towards Japan. From John Dower’s War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War(again, bolding mine):
A comparison with any other plausible alternative would result in a death toll at least equal to if not higher than that of invasion. You haven’t presented any alternative that would result in fewer deaths. Japan surrendering say, after the firebombing of Tokyo would certainly have resulted in fewer deaths, but that’s not a plausible alternative.
I’m not supporting or refuting any alternative scenario here… But I did want to point out one factor that supports UDS’s observation that alternatives were more complicated than mere binary “massive US invasion”/“2 atom bombs on cities”’:
The Soviet attack against the Japanese forces in Manchuria, which started at the same time as the atomic bombs and was already enjoying success when Japan surrendered about a week later.
ETA: I see that Dissonance mentioned this in passing, but we really can’t know how the Japanese’ calculus would have changed had the Soviet invasion (and US firebombing, and assurance of the Emperor’s personal safety…) been allowed to continue longer.
Also:
–demonstrating an atom bomb’s destructive force on a non-civilian target in Japan
–waiting more than three days to drop a second atom bomb
Again, I’m not arguing anything here…just supporting UDS’s observation that there’s more than one plausible alternative scenario.
(Apologies for wandering into GD territory…I forgot we’re in GQ. The OP’s question has been answered, I think.)
Of the 50ish divisions in the European there were contingencies for bringing over 15 divisions including the Airborne assets since Airborne operations had been limited in the PTO.
While I respect the efforts of the code breakers, they didn’t “shorten the war by two years” in actual fact. The war in Europe would have ended in August 1945 at the latest, when an atomic bomb would have been dropped on Berlin. It wouldn’t have run to 1947 and beyond even without Bletchely existing.
In any event, WWII was so complicated that a lot of people made significant contributions to end the war. Heck, even Operation Valkyrie shortened the war, but not in the way the planners hoped.
Interesting point. Did the Allies have good intelligence about where Adolph was holed up? Presumably they would go for a lot closer ground bursts, assuming they had some intelligence on his bunkers; but then, what were the air defences around Berlin like toward the end?
The issue of a 1945 nuclear strike on Berlin has been discussed at length in multiple threads on the boards. I’ll repeat my previously expressed opinion that, under those circumstances, the Reich Chancellery would have been an obvious aim point and that would have sufficed to kill virtually everyone in the bunker.
The snag in terms of using a nuke to kill Hitler is that virtually every other scenario doesn’t work. For the most part, Allied intelligence didn’t know where he was. Most obviously, the details of the planning for the British proposed Operation Foxley](Operation Foxley - Wikipedia) from 1944 have been published in full. That was basically guessing that they might get a shot at him at the Berghof. (In other words, no more sophisticated than Household had surmised in Rogue Male.)
Otherwise, his whereabouts were unknown. That something like the Wolf’s Lair, and its various equivalents, must exist was basically obvious, but the Allies didn’t know where they were.
With perfect 20/20 hindsight it is possible to come up an infinitude of scenarios that could have ended the war earlier and with less bloodshed. The problem is that not only was there limited and often poor information available, the clock kept ticking, and every day people kept dying.
Decisions had to be made with the information to hand and with the resources available.
It might have been possible to send a team into Kyoto and to kidnap the emperor. That would have made things interesting. If we knew everything we do now it would probably be possible to make it work. But it is the plot for a very B grade action movie.
Worth remembering that the great fear of the counter-invasion of Europe would have been that it could bog down into a repeat of 30 years earlier. An estimate of lives saved would have had that grim scenario in mind. Certainly the technology of war had advanced enormously, but no-one expected WW1 to end up in a salemated bloodbath either. The value of very good intelligence is hard to quantify, but that it helped the Allies implement the invasion with maximum success and speed could easily have been a critical element in the manner in which the end of the war played out.
To be fair, I didn’t necessarily mean nuking Berlin=killing Hitler. Obliterating the capital today, Schweinfurt the next day, Nuremberg the next - these would have ended the war, with or without killing the High Command.
As I recall, the Allies had virtual air superiority over Europe. Bombing Berlin wasn’t necessarily a milk run, but close.
I find the notion that “nothing between 1942 and 1945 mattered — the A-bomb was coming to end the war” somewhat dissatisfying. You could carry this to absurd extremes: “The Bastard’s conquest in 1066 turned out to be irrelevant — the Brits voted Brexit 950 years later.” 
Bombing Germany would have been more difficult without airfields in Britain — unavailable if that nation, starved by U-boat attacks, had sued for peace.