Planned Allied Invasion of Japan (1945-46)

HAD it happened, it would unquestionably been a bloodbath on both sides, but much more so for the Japanese. While the US military planners pegged Allied casualties at upwards to a million, I don't buy that. Still, 200,000 or more allied casualties would not have been surprising. Nor would millions of Japanese.

As to the Soviets invading Japan as well, I don't claim enough knowledge. They unquestionably had the ground and air force to make it happen. My question is....Did they have the naval and transport assets to get that army across the sea of Japan? Perhaps somebody better acquainted with the Soviet Navy can answer that question.

since february 1945 the USA had the completely air superiority. Great parts of the japanese towns were destroyed, with it a great part of the industry. The japanese fleet was in great parts destroyed and any support from abroad was interrupted.
In August 1945 japan had around 65 divisions available, but only around 30 were equipped with ammunition.
MacArthur and Nimitz estimated the losses around 20-40,000 in the first month and 105,000 after 4 month of fighting. It is my suppose, that the higher losses by others are motivated by the will to use the nukes or the later estimations to apologize the nuking.
If we imagine, that at the same time Russia invaded from the east and perhaps had threatened the Japanese islands as well, I can't see, that Japan had fight till the very end.

I think at the time the U.S. would have welcomed Russian help (less U.S. casualties). still the cost would have been enormous and japan would have taken centuries to recover. My father was in the navy in the pacific and he said they were all scared because they didnt know what japan would try to pull off as a last desperate measure

bil73 said:

he said they were all scared because they didnt know what japan would try to pull off as a last desperate measure

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This is the general impression i've gathered, too. The Japanese saw absolutely no honour in surrendering, and allied intelligence would have no real clue when they would give up. Their use of kamikaze pilots clearly illustrates this.

sleeming88 said:

Simple question really. Would the Allied plan for an invasion of the Japanese home islands (Operation Downfall) have worked and how well/badly would it have gone for them? I would certainly have put money on there being over a million US casulaties, depending on the hostility of the local population, and millions more for the Japanese, especially if the Americans had used atomic bombs. No doubt the Soviets would have wanted in on the party as well. Their participation would almost certainly have prevented US post-war dominance over Japan and the Pacific, adding a bit of extra spice to the inevitable Cold War.

Your thoughts......

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Certainly it would have worked. How well/badly? I'm afraid that's subjective. That ..., MacArthur, could only define Victory in terms of occupying enemy ground (he knew absolutely nothing about air/sea power-- that is, defeating Japan with an air/sea blockade). So if the US had occupied Japanese land he would have said it went well, regardless of casualties. A person who is capable of intelligent, rational, or coherent thinking would have said it went badly, since an invasion (and any casualties resulting from it) weren't necessary in the first place.

the submarine blockade was already reaping havoc on japan and had it continued for a few more months the entire country would be facing death by starvation. yet its doubtful whether MacArthur would have waited for that and would have been eager to go ahead with the invasion. looking at the ratio of deaths between the americans and japanese in the island campaigns you can see that losses for the japanese would certainly have been in the millions with the americans in the hundreds of thousands.

the russians did not have much experience in amphibious landings as seen in their taking of a series of islands north of japan. its hard to say if whether they would have gone ahead with their own invasion yet they could have if they wanted yet the threats of friendly fire may have been enough to make the americans think the russians were better off staying out of it.