World War II Trivia (002)

[Rafe35]

What was the code name of the Invasion of Japan that never took place?

[DiabloTX]

Olympic.

[TimRas]

Operation DOWNFALL, the invasion of Japan, was in two components scheduled for the Fall and Spring of 1945-46:

Operation OLYMPIC, Nov 1, 1945, after the hurricane season, before winter. General Krueger, Sixth Army, with nine divisions (3 more in reserve) was to invade three beaches in southern Kyushu, the southern-most of the four Japanese home islands. This was to became a giant airbase to support the next invasion phase in the Spring of 1946. The Japanese had correctly predicted our invasion point and had reinforced Kyushu threefold over initial US expectations.

Operation CORONET, March 1, 1946, of Honshu, the main island, with 22 divisions in the Spring after air fields on Kyushu allowed landbased air support. There were to be two prongs:
    General Hodges, with the 1st Army to land east of Tokyo, clear the peninsula, establish air fields, land tank divisions transferred from European, about 30 days, then charge across the plains to take the capital.
    Ten days after the initial landing, LtGen Eichelberger with 8th Army was to attack west of Yokohama, Tokyo's seaport, open Tokyo Bay and block any reinforcement of Tokyo.

[Pongo]

The bodies would have been stacked pretty high after those battles. Millions?

[Karnak]

Originally posted by Pongo
The bodies would have been stacked pretty high after those battles. Millions?

Certainly millions of Japanese, most like a million+ Americans.  It would have mad D-Day look easy.  We tricked the Germans, but not the Japanese.

The atomic bombs saved a lot of lives, American and Japanese alike.  They also quite likely preserved much of Japanese culture, tradition and historical buildings.

[Furball]

Originally posted by Karnak

The atomic bombs saved a lot of lives, American and Japanese alike.  

not to mention Russian, British & Empire troops (among others).

[Rasker]

yeah most likely would have been a Russian occupation zone in north Japan, followed by a Japan Wall and a Peoples Repulblic of Japan in the the north.  Heck, mebbe the Korean War would have been fought in Japan.

[Rafe35]

TimRas and DiabloTX is correct, Congrats

BTW, Furball is right about Russian, British & Empire troops (among others) from saving million lives after A-Bomb drop on Japan.

[Fridaddy]

I read an interesting discussion about this. The entire first wave, the ENTIRE 1st Marine Division was gonna be written off.  This was after the several hundred US Navy "Loon" rockets (German V-1's) that dropped tonns and tons of chemical weapons on the Japanese defenders.

Millions of bodies would be right. The Bomb was the correct decision.

[airbumba]

Imagine the conventional bombing...   Man, that woulda made a desert outta that place. Considering more civilians died in the fire bombing attacks than the nuke attacks, woulda been real messy.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

Also, the current stock of Purple Heart Medals is actually left over from the stockpile of those ordered for the invasion of Japan. Yes, that is a fact, more Purple Hearts were expected to be awarded in the invasion of Japan than have been issued in the nearly SIXTY years since, including Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and both operations against Iraq.

[hogenbor]

Just saw a documentary about U-234, bringing uranium from Germany to Japan when the war ended for the Nazi's.

It's a horrible, horrible thought, but people claiming that the bomb saved lives, and even saved Japan are most likely right.

It's like killing the cancer by punishing the whole body.