[100] Prior to the First Quebec Conference, a joint CanadianBritishAmerican planning team produced a plan ("Appreciation and Plan for the Defeat of Japan") which did not call for an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands until 194748. More than seventy years after the end of World War II, the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains controversial. . One staff study estimated that the kamikazes could destroy a third to half of the invasion force before landing. ", "That approximately twenty-one (21) hostile divisions, including depot divisions, will be on Honshu at the initiation of [Coronet] and that fourteen (14) of these divisions may be employed in the Kanto Plain area. Answer (1 of 4): When Stalin agreed to join the war against Japan, he presented the US with a considerable wish list of Lend-Lease materials. The entry of the U.S. into the Alliance meant the scope of the planned cross-Channel invasion would grow. The Fifth Air Fleet was assigned the task of kamikaze attacks against ships involved in the invasion of Okinawa, Operation Ten-Go, and began training pilots and assembling aircraft for the defense of Kysh, the first invasion target. 1940s 1945 - US USES ATOMIC BOMBS ON JAPAN TO END WWII In an attempt to end the war in the Pacific without a costly invasion of Japan, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945 respectively. [97] [33], While Japan no longer had a realistic prospect of winning the war, Japan's leaders believed they could make the cost of invading and occupying the Home Islands too high for the Allies to accept, which would lead to some sort of armistice rather than total defeat. Figures for Coronet exclude values for both the immediate strategic reserve of 3 divisions as well as the 17 division strategic reserve in the U.S. and any British/Commonwealth forces. Whereas the civilian population without this protection died in their thousands. [29][pageneeded] The war ended before the details of the corps were finalized. The provinces of Henan, Hunan and Guangxi were taken and by October 1944 Sichan was the last large province still held by the Chinese Nationalists. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan. It is unknown to what extent they could have opposed Soviet landings in the far north of Japan. [58], Allied counter-kamikaze preparations were known as the Big Blue Blanket. Resort trips and hotel rooms - Business Insider IWM collections. The operation for the occupation of Japan following the landing may be a very long, costly and arduous struggle on our part. [22][23] The Allied forces would then have driven north and inland, encircling Tokyo and pressing on toward Nagano. This involved adding more fighter squadrons to the carriers in place of torpedo and dive bombers, and converting B-17s into airborne radar pickets in a manner similar to present-day AWACS. [78][79][80] As a result, in Project Hula (1945), the United States transferred about 100 naval vessels out of the 180 planned to the Soviet Union in preparation for the planned Soviet entry into the war against Japan. At Kysh, because of the more favorable circumstances (such as terrain that would reduce the Allies' radar advantage, and the impressment of wood and fabric airframe training aircraft into the kamikaze role which would have been difficult for Allied radar systems of the time to detect and track), they hoped to raise that to one for six by overwhelming the US defenses with large numbers of kamikaze attacks within a period of hours. Background The Japanese High Command instigated a massive defence plan, Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive) beginning with Kyushu that would eventually amount to almost 3 million men with the aim of breaking American morale by ferocious defence. Even after the bombs and the Soviet invasion, some of Japan's hawks. ", Henry L. Stimson, "The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb" p. 11, "Okinawa: The Final Great Battle of World War II", "The Final Months of the War with Japan. As for the second bomb on Nagasaki, that was just as unnecessary as the . Inside her were over 500 sailors of the Soviet Navy. [102] In the initial stage, the First Army would have invaded at Kujkuri Beach, on the Bs Peninsula, while the Eighth Army invaded at Hiratsuka, on Sagami Bay; these armies would have comprised 25 divisions between them. [citation needed], The main defense against Japanese air attacks would have come from the massive fighter forces being assembled in the Ryukyu Islands. Opposition from the United States and doubts within the Soviet high command caused the plans to be cancelled before the invasion could begin. United States Naval Institute. Gradually, intelligence learned that the Japanese were devoting all their aircraft to the kamikaze mission and taking effective measures to conserve them until the battle. Japan's Plan | American Experience | Official Site | PBS An inventory of mines was anchored to the sea bottom off each potential invasion beach for their use by the suicide divers, with up to 10,000 mines planned. Airbases on Kysh captured in Operation Olympic would allow land-based air support for Operation Coronet. This raid burned 15.8 square miles of Tokyo, killing almost 100,000 Japanese. All of which resulted in the first atomic bomb test carried out at the Alamagordo Air Force Base, New Mexicoon 16 July 1945. On 8 May 1945, the Allies celebrated VE Day, marking the end of the war in Europe. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945 the Allies agreed to the Soviet conditions which included restoration of her special rights in Manchuria after their defeat during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5. [4], At the time, the development of the atomic bomb was a very closely guarded secret (not even then-Vice President Harry Truman knew of its existence until he became President), known only to a few top officials outside the Manhattan Project (and to the Soviet espionage apparatus, which had managed to infiltrate agents into, or recruit agents from within the program, despite the tight security around it), and the initial planning for the invasion of Japan did not take its existence into consideration. Asada argues that the atomic bombs provided a greater shock to Japanese policymakers than the Soviet entry into the war because (1) the bombing was a direct attack on the Japanese homeland, compared with the Soviet Union's "indirect" invasion in Manchuria; and (2) it was not anticipated. Russia Planned To Attack Japan in 2021: Leaked FSB Letters - Newsweek "[87] To sustain the campaign on Kyushu, planners estimated a replacement stream of 100,000 men per month would be necessary, a figure achievable even after the partial demobilization following the defeat of Germany. In my opinion, there should not be the slightest thought of changing the Olympic operation.[75]. Stalin had agreed to enter the war against Japan at the Teheran Conference in 1943. 330 Navy bombers flown by highly trained pilots to attack the Allied carrier task force to prevent it from supporting the invasion convoys. [84] From analysis of the replacement schedule and projected strengths in overseas theaters, it suggested that Army losses alone in those categories, excluding the Navy and Marine Corps, would be approximately 863,000 through the first part of 1947, of whom 267,000 would be killed or missing.
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