What if Operation Downfall,The full scale invasion of Japan,went into action?Where do u think the allies would have landed?How long do you think it would have tooken?
This is a link to a detailed article on OLYMPIC, the plan for the first phase of DOWNFALL, and the Japanese plan to resist invation: http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/war.term/olympic.html D-day had been provisionally fixed for 1 November 1945.
There's a good novel, called "Lighter Than A Feather," also called "Downfall," that tells the invasion of Kyushu. It's not a bad little war story.
Well, Okinawa would be used as the base of operations, and the war would have lasted a good 5 years longer...
Well, Okinawa would be used as the base of operations, and the war would have lasted a good 5 years longer... I don't know if it would have taken that long. maybe 9 months. The Americans would have had all there forces from Europe. The British probably would have helped as well The Russians had also just declared war on Japan. It would have been bloody though, especially with the Japanese attitude of surrender. Your point is well taken though. Dpalme01
Originally posted by Dpalme01@Aug 30 2004, 10:53 AM Well, Okinawa would be used as the base of operations, and the war would have lasted a good 5 years longer... I don't know if it would have taken that long. maybe 9 months. The Americans would have had all there forces from Europe. The British probably would have helped as well The Russians had also just declared war on Japan. It would have been bloody though, especially with the Japanese attitude of surrender. Your point is well taken though. Dpalme01 [post=27838]Quoted post[/post] It would have taken a lot longer than nine months. The Americans were shipping in forces from Europe, but they would not arrive until 1946. The British, Canadians, and Australians were each to contribute a division, in the later stages of Coronet, the invasion of Honshu. Those divisions were being re-trained and re-equipped to American equipment and tables of organization. There is good detail on the Canadian conversion of 6th Infantry Division in "Six Years of War." The Soviets did not have much of an amphibious capacity and it's questionable that MacArthur would allow his ships to ferry Soviet troops from Korea. One thing is likely: the Japanese would have fought with every person they had, down to small children, who were being trained on bamboo spears and ceramic hand grenades to shed their lives to kill at least one American soldier. Another factor is that the Americans were becoming war-weary, and pressure was on the leadership to crush Japan definitively, after five years of war across the world. A gruesome campaign in Kyushu and Honshu would likely have seen the introduction of poison gas on either side, and vast numbers of civilian deaths.
The bulk of available British land forces would have been occupied with clearing out Malaya and South East Asia. Olympic was a US operation as far as land forces were concerned, but the British fleet would have been involved on a large scale.
Gentlemen: Five year war against an island with no outside support, not likely. No supplies, little food, alot of people with no weapons. Huge American air armadas hitting anything that moved. A year at the outset, that's only because we would have had number of islands to invade and not just one huge campaign. Japan was dead at the end. Americans tired of war at that time? Remember, the Japs attacked us, we didn't forget. We would have made Japan into a waste land and then paid to rebuild it again, just like we did. Joe
