This is very personal to me. I am a good by baby, born in April, 1945 when my father was fighting in Europe. After that war ended he was sent to fight Japan. He was a squad leader in the combat engineers and his job was to disarm mines and booby traps. He was likely to have been one of the million men killed or wounded during the invasion. Because Truman dropped the bomb, I grew up with an live and uninjured father.
Agreed He could teach a thing or two about production sets & cost efficiencies. Harpo Productions. . . ya watching? Noj Production. . . 5 rolls Schumacher floral
In the six days between Nagasaki and the acceptance of Potsdam, more people died than were killed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WW2 killed over a million people a month for its entire duration (1937-1945). It's a no brainer
These guys, as a collective, are my favourites on this channel. They are so fascinating and clear with their information and discussion points. Great episode!!
Agreed. Jonathan Parshall & Rear Admiral Parry are great combo. Hopefully the channel has more topics to mine that would pair well with bringing back Jonathan Parshall as a guest, assuming availibility.
It must be easier to speculate what MIGHT happen in these theoretical discussions than to actually have had the weight on your shoulders making the actual decisions at the time. Knowing that hundreds of thousands and, in some scenarios, millions of lives, depending on your decision must have made it as stressful as it is possible to get. Good discussion. It's a bit like being the "quiet one in the corner" at a university Supervision, where the others have prepared well.
Something worth commenting on is that if the Soviets had more time to be involved and could get a seat at the table for any negotiations after the peace, then there would almost certainly have been no way the Japanese Emperor gets off as lightly as he did.
I was just thinking about the Falklands San Carlos scenario with attack aircraft coming overland to surprise landing ships, when the historian mentions it casually...
@@drcovell Indeed, that was one of my reference points. (The other being West Germany- an example of the authoritarian regime eventually collapsing in order to bracket the spectrum of results of USSR involvement.)
This was a good one. I've said for a while that if the bombs had not been ready or had failed to be developed, Truman might very well have decided to not go ahead with Operation Downfall at all. He might have not wanted to be the guy who presided over such a great loss of U.S. military lives. They might have decided to go ahead with the firebombing and blockade. John says towards the end that the entire Japanese food distribution system would have collapsed by the Spring of '46.
Jon’s right about that, but he knows more about it than had time to mention here. Elsewhere (on the _Unauthorized History of the Pacific War_ channel), in discussions about postwar Japan, Jon mentions that the 1945 rice crop suffered a disastrous failure, and the Japanese were in for mass starvation in late 1945 into 1946. Had the war not ended when it did, MacArthur wouldn’t have been able to bring in the foodstocks that saved postwar Japanese from starvation.
No, the US was committed to invading Japan. In the weeks from May 1945, the US and UK were redeploying troops, and air and naval assets to the Japanese theatre. They would have spent nine months of building forces up and training the troops.
With the hive mind thinking in Japan of the day, had US forces landed in Japan ,besides Japanese troops, mass formations of civilians with sharpened bamboo doing human wave charges would have been encountered.With the firepower possessed by US forces of the day, and the animosity in the heart of the US, The realization of Adm William Halsey ' s prediction of " The only place Japanese will be spoken is in Hell when we are through with them" would have come to pass.
I most likely would have never been born if the bombs had not been dropped. My mom's dad was in the 11th airborne division and would've been one of the first to go into Japan. Odds are he would've been killed and my mom wouldn't have been born
The British DID re-establish themselves in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. That is not counterfactual. Whereas, if the French could have held on to Vietnam, that would have been.
I also found that an odd comment as the British did re-establish themselves in Burma, Malaya and Singapore. Burma did become independent in 1948 along with India and Pakistan which I think was too soon considering what a screwed up country Myanmar is now. Malaysia and Singapore are stable successful countries. The Netherlands did try to re-establish themselves in Indonesia but not successfully. I have read that the RN getting involved in the Pacific was to ensure that the British could re-establish British presence in Hong Kong.
@@kevinrayner5812There is a fascinating book called Mountbatten's Samurai. It deals with how soldiers of the IJN were used to help re-establish colonial rule especially Vietnam.
@@philipebbrell2793 I wonder if I can go a bit off topic here. Burma had been very largely recovered in 1945 before the final Japanese surrender in September 1945. The next stage to plan the retake Malaya and to invade Thailand was underway. I have searched and searched and I can't anything about how the invasion of Thailand was to take place. I know that the Japanese had moved POWs to the east of Thailand. I assume the invasion would have followed the route of the Burma Siam railway. A what if video of the Japanese winning at Imphal and Kohima would be interesting then analysis of the situation in SE Asia if the A bomb had not been dropped and invasion of Thailand and Malaya had taken place.
@@philipebbrell2793 Disarmed Japanese soldiers were certainly re-armed by the French. In different circumstances, the Japanese army was invited to Singapore by the British in 1918, to quell civilian unrest.
No matter how the war ended, if the Truman decided to not use the bomb, it would have ended his career. Even losing only the least number of troops, just imagine what would happen when it became known that almost 1/4 of the entire cost of the war was spent on a secret weapon which could have ended the way in a few days with no further loss of life, but was not used for whatever reason. I know that one of the people wanting Truman impeached would have been my mother. My father, an MD who served in Africa and Europe, had developed high blood pressure and angina from the stresses of the war, but had orders to report to San Diego to join the invasion fleet. Despite not having to go he was dead within a year. If there was an invasion he surely would have died over there. But that’s just one personal issue. As general Groves said in his book, if the bomb hadn’t worked he would have spent the rest of his life in congressional hearings trying to justify spending so much money. To actually have a working bomb but not use it would have been worse. Truman became president in April which is when he first learned of the bomb. He inherited a war of ‘unconditional surrender’ and the atom bomb from a 4 time elected president, the only president many people ever knew, and to suddenly make such big changes would have been political suicide. After V E Day people at home were anxious for the war to. be. OVER. The public was demanding an end to rationing, and for troops who had been in the pacific since the beginning to come home. Ending the war too early by negotiating a surrender without having control of what happened inside Japan would have just set the stage for another war 10-20 years later. As it is, we still had 2 wars because we thought we needed Russia’s help. Without Russia’s support there wouldn’t have been a partition of Korea or Vietnam. For just two weeks of Russian support we suffered two wars. I knew thousands of people who fought in the war, from 7 years working at a VA hospital and in my private practice as a physician. The vast majority of combat vets supported using the bomb. Remember, no one really understood the true effects of a nuclear weapon. Most people involved simply thought of it as just a much bigger bomb. The effects of radiation both long and short term wasn’t understood. As an example, in the 30s people bought radioactive toothpaste with thorium in it. There’s a saying that hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to something like this foresight is blind.
In 2024, we're still awarding Purple Heart medals that were minted in preparation for Downfall. They made that many, anticipating horrific casualties. Good video! Usually, I find your content to be highly informative, but a bit longish in delivery. On this one, I wished it went on even longer! Well done!
they would have hesitated, because they had no reliable delivery system. If they built a weapon of US weight and dimension they could not deliver it by air.
@@luketaper9401 I think there's a legit argument that an attempt by submarine into one of our ports (or even Pearl Harbor) might have at least been possible, though not necessarily successful...or even impactful.
I heard that the USA with the number of casualties they expected produced vast quantities of Purple Hearts (the medal given to wounded military) that they are still using the stocks from that time.
I had heard the same so i did some googling : "During World War II, 1,506,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured, many in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. By the end of the war, even accounting for medals lost, stolen, or wasted, nearly 500,000 remained"
Superbly done, gentlemen! And Jon, this is almost shaping up to be another *_Three Amigos_* gig for you, second only to your triumvirate with Seth and Captain Bill over on the brilliant _Unauthorized History of the Pacific War_ channel…er, except that this gig is missing the electric Kool-Aid Acid psychedelic shirts. 😎
For those who are against the atomic bombs being dropped, here's something to seriously think about. If you had a father, grandfather, or great-grandfather fight in WWII (or would've become eligible for military service had the war lasted a couple of more years) and he was sent to fight in the invasion of Japan (or on the Japanese side, had to help defend Japan) and he dies, you don't exist. If the casualty estimates ended up being accurate or higher than expected, you end up having fewer boomers, fewer Gen Xers, fewer millennials, fewer Gen Zers, etc. as a result. Had either one of my grandfathers been killed (one was in the war as a member of the Army Air Corps, the other would've been eligible for military service had the war lasted longer), I don't exist.
The main reason Operation Downfall did not occur stems from two factors. One is not having enough forces without withdrawing from the European theater, with estimates of a need of 1.5 million to make it work. Two, the battles of Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, and the proposed invasion of Korea were taking way too long and costing way too many lives. On top of that, none of the allies were in any shape to respond after the war in Europe. This is proven with what would be considered a token task force from the Commonwealth forces with two carriers, two battleships, a cruiser, and 9 destroyers that were a mix of Australian, Canadian, and British forces to the sea part of the plan and having only 2 divisions from Australia. The estimated end of the war would be the beginning of 1947 which was considered too much for American planners. The option of the bombs being used to counter what would be viewed as a bloodletting of epic proportions was only after FDR died because people were becoming war-weary and wanted it to END!
Good logistical point made by Parshall about Iwo Jima. DL Giangreco is a good read on "Downfall" sourcing military plans both sides and Soviet archives. We had a completely separate and necassarilly secretive Lend Lease agreement with the USSR focused on Manchuria that included Liberty Ships and training merchant crews for them down to uniforms for the Soviet troops. Richard Frank is also good but what Giangreco sees in the Japanese strategy of "Redoubt" to force negotiations might've been more viable than we'd like to admit depending on our casualties. Giangreco's book: "Hell to Pay" 2nd edition is pretty detailled in the preperations perhaps heavy towards the Japansee plans. I've yet to read Richard Frank past "Tower of Skulls" which I also recommend. He also pointed out that the Emporer's directive made the Soviet advances in Manchuria as successful as it was as most troops in Manchuria were commanded by officers convinced by Hirohito's inner circle of spokesmen to retain fidelity to the Emporer's directive.
Would make a great scifi episode. People with good intentions uses a time machine to prevent the success of the US atomic bomb program. Returns to the present to see the USSR in control of the world.
The Island of Kyushu was invaded in the 4th Century and Honshu in the 4-5th Century, by iron-armored Horseriders from the 3 Kingdoms from Iron Age Korea. See the book *Korean Impact on Japanese Culture: Japan’s Hidden History* by Covell, which examines Korean-Japanese relations from ancient prehistory up to the Japanese Colonial Period.
I'm with Jon and his comment about the effect of a potential blockade and when 1946 came, Japan would have been starving. Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech also referred to the bad domestic situation. I've heard one US military historian speculate that he was referring to the recent bad domestic rice harvest. Even before the war, Japan needed to import food. If their domestic production was lowered, combined with the strengthening allied blockade, they didn't have the food to feed their people and that was going to be felt almost immediately. You combined that with allied airpower destroying their infrastructure and their ability to move what food they had around, you are looking at mass starvation in parts of Japan. I don't see Japan having the literal strength to fight beyond 1946. Never mind the fact that their ability to produce weapons and ammunition would have been mostly destroyed before then. Just the numbers of Japanese that would have died massively outweigh those that died in the atomic bombings, never mind the numbers that would have died in areas still under Japanese occupation.
Unrestricted US submarine warfare was decisive in strangling Japan. The invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall) was never contemplated and certainly wouldn't have cost hundreds of thousands of US lives. US Losses in the Pacific up to 1945 was 68,000. The US was prepared to quarantine Japan and wait it out but that became moot when Russia entered the war against Japan in Manchuria. The first shot of the Cold War was the dropping of the first atomic bomb. It was a warning to the Soviets as well as England and France not to interfere.
I often wonder if the bombs had not been dropped in 1945, exposing the general population the destructive power of nuclear weapons, would the Cold War have escalated to a full blown nuclear conflict?
Truman would have been impeached and since there was no 25th amendment to replace the VP if he became President, the Speaker of the house would have become President, which would have been Sam Rayburn at the time.
The truth of the matter is that the A-Bombs would've been ineffectual to use as tactical weapons, except for destroying something like a strategic bridge or airfield. We would've just been irradiating our troops on the beaches for not much gain.
Also the dropping of the bombs demonstrated to Stalin that the US didn't need any help in defeating the Japanese and thus position the US in the Eastern Asia zone of influence.
Yeah that 1,2 combo coming in just 10 days of 2 nukes, a Soviet invasion, and the threat of more bombs was the only senerio where Japan surrendered without an invasion. Cant do it without one or the other
At the time of the surrender, my dad was sitting in the Philippines as part of the 5th Cav waiting to participate in the invasion. There is a good chance I and my 8 siblings wouldn't be here either.
Your best production yet, an incredible episode. I think the only thing you missed is that Chiang Kai-shek might've had more support to defeat Mao. A stretch I know but the communisation of Asia might not've happened.
A very good point. Had the Nationalists defeated the Communists, the Cold War may have also played out differently. Certainly Vietnam wouldn't have occurred.
Japan surrendered due to the atomic bomb. Japanese commanders wanted to fight to the death and take as many of the enemy with them as possible. The A-bomb made the Japanese leaders realize that the allies could destroy their country from the air without setting foot in Japan. Further resistance would be futile. The Japanese surrendered 6 days after the 2nd use of a nuclear weapon. Case closed.
If the Atomic Bombs had been not used, would there have been Godzilla-Movies in Japan? As far as I know, the experience of those drops had been one of the major motivations for making the Godzilla movies in the first place.
I think the contribution of the British Pacific Fleet is terribly unstated in the pacific war. While Adm King didn't want us there he did come cap in hand asking us for an aircraft carrier when the US navy was down to one serviceable carrier, Saratoga, after the loss of Hornet at the battle of Santa Cruz. So in 1943 HMS Victorious then operates with US Navy as USS Robin, for which Nimitz was very grateful and gave us all the logistic support we needed, which gave British FAA pilots the necessary experience for working with the US Navy, flying Hellcats, Avengers and Corsairs. Yes the British saw the political and military necessity of re-establishing themselves in the old empire but that was only part of it, defeating Japan was the prime concern.
One thing not said here is the the US asked the Soviets to intervene against Japan at the Yalta onference in February 1945. An agreemnent was made for the USSR to intervene commencing on August 15, 1945. The first bomb was used on the 6th and the Soviets moved their offensive date forward to the 9th. The scale of the offensive and the combat strength of the two opposing forces was notable. The Japanese were practically unable to stop the Soviet heavy tanks rolling forward and the Manchurian Japanese army was practically destroyed within a week. This did have an effect on the Japanese decision to surrender. They wisely realised that the Soviets may be given an occupation zone in Japan itself, something they were very worried about. The western Allies also changed their unconditional surrender demand to concede that the Emperor should be allowed to stay on as Japans god like ruler, if in name only. This concession helped change the Japanese mindset on continuing the war.
Thank you for this video. I conforms what I have said/ment for a long time that because of the willingness of the Japanese people to die for Japan/Emperor, the cost in both military and civilian lives would have bin much higher.
The actual mechanism of the Japanese decision to surrender is still not widely known. It is true that the energy of the abomb, 18k tons, is larger than say a 1000 bomber raid, say 3k tons, the effective damage is not hugely different. The Japanese were aware of theory of the bomb, and also that it is very difficult resource intensive to produce enough fissile material. Hence after the first bomb, it was agreed it was an A-bomb, the hard core continue the war faction staked their reputation that another bomb would not happen for months. When the second bomb occurred only days later, they lost face, and that gave opening for the surrender faction to sway the emperor
@@stephenyoung3721 Yes, and we could add they had already demonstrated they were more than willing to sacrifice the lives of their "colonies" like the Koreans and "marginally Japanese" like the Okinawans.
If japan had ended up blockaged and firebombed eould there been an orginized goverment left to surender? For example the Tokyo area imported over 98 percent of its food and between subs cutting off coastal shipping and bombing raids cutting the rail network there would have been bmass starvation and civil uprisings
As the speakers said in the beginning, there was more to the equation than the Japanese. Over 200k allied civilians in Japan, 750k of allied civilians dieing per month in surrounding countries.
I've long been a fan of a genre of writing called "Alternative History" or "Counterfactualism". You make one change to a historic timeline, the change being as small and as creible as possible, and then speculate on what that change wrought. On this exact subject, I've read quite a few such speculative pieces. One posited that the US went ahead with the first part of Downfall, Olympic, which was the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan proper. It turned out that our intel drastically underestimated the number of Japanese troops on the island, with there being a new parity between the number of attackers and defenders. This is not a recipe for a successful invasion. The piece envisioned a stalemate lasting long enough for the Soviet Union to expand their toehold on Sakhalin Island and invade the Japanese home islands. At this point, invaded from north and south, I think the Japanese would have been forced to surrender, with the result that there likely would have been a Communist Northern Japan and a Free Southern Japan with Tokyo being partitioned the way Berlin was. The second piece I recall dealt with an expansion of the strategic bombing campaign, including additional firebombing where appropriate (although by August 1945 there weren't many cities that hadn't been firebombed). The Inland Sea had been mined to the point that ship traffic was virtually at a standstill. The Japanese home islands could not grow enough food to feed their populace, and the ways by which food (and fuel) was transported was becoming increasingly fragile. Post-war evaluation of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign found that, as devastating to infrastructure as the real campaign had been, it would have been even more devastating had we concentrated on Japan's limited railroad network. This would have brought down Japan quickly, but was likely to have the result of causing a multi-year famine among the Japanese population.
Probably more interesting question is what if after two bombs dropped Japan would not surrender? They would have realized that Americans had been bluffing as there were no more bombs. Quite possibly the taboo of atomic weapons would have never been established as other countries could think: look at them, they absorbed two hits and fought on.
An excellent analysis. I'd never thought about the hostages before: the civilian populations of the occupied territories and the POWs. An immediate forced capitulation saved millions and even tens of millions of lives. Add to that the Japanese culture that surrender was a disgrace: in Okinawa, thousands of civilians committed suicide. The same would likely have happened in Japan. Finally, the big unanswered question: why were civilian targets chosen? That is why today the atomic bombs and the firebombings are widely regarded as atrocities. It's a pity you skirted that.
Surprised they do not mention Korea, a war that drags on till November means Soviets have taken all of Korea, amphibious ability to take Hokkaido is debatable, but on the mainland nothing is stopping them.
You really don't know your British history if you think that Britain would have taken the opportunity to reestablish its empire in the area. The Empire had been bleeding Britain dry well before WW1 due to changing mindsets, it became the British people's responsibility to raise up and improve all the countries in the empire. The British built and staffed schools and hospitals in India and other countries, it was costing far more than Britain was gaining. There was a ban on claik8ng new territories for Britain, but British officers ignored the order and did it anyway. They knew that the British government would be forced to publicly praise them and reward them, also it advanced their military careers. Pre WW1 Britain was done with empire, it was only old school die hards that wanted to maintain the empire no matter the cost.
A disgraced MacArthur, is he around to save the ROC with that counter invasion? Any chance that war goes a different way with some other general in command when Pusan was being defended?
In another world he might not have used it so quickly after the first test, there is an argument to save them till Oct Nov and use multiple in run up to invasion. There is a theory of what if the first test fails so there is a delay while they re work plan, there is no President if he has the option of not using them at all.
In reality, the US had two reasons to drop the bombs. The first was to achieve Japan’s defeat. Second to put Stalin on notice not to roll over Europe and keep out of Japan. Surely had Germany and Japan not surrendered, the same replay would have played out 20 years after the end of WWII, like it did 20 years after WWI. The Nazis and Japanese Nationalists were deeply engrained in government and their respective societies.
If I had been President during the spring and summer of 1945 I would have simply told the Japanese that they are going to be occupied by either the Americas... or the Soviets?!? Now Choose!!
BTW, Germany offered peace to Britain and the later the USA too, while they were winning BIG on very generous terms from after the Polish campaign and the French campaign until FDR decided (only after Stalingrad) to demand unconditional surrender. Saying that Germany should have surrendered unconditionally to the Soviet Union is just idiotic. Japan would have sued for peace too if given an option. Ignoring FDR and his Unconditional Surrender demand is ignoring the 800lb gorilla in the room.
Noone is trying to even consider an option of conditional surrender? Like Japan figuring this is pointless but US also figuring that Japan was paved enough and the cost of that last mile being too high ?
What would the conditional surrender have meant. I don't think that the Chinese would have been happy with that. They were the ones who paid the highest price.
@@andrewnlarsen Remind me of the figures quoted. It was 700,000 combatants and civilian deaths per month? Every 2 months it went on that was 1.4 million deaths. what would this conditional surrender consisted of, the Japanese surrendering with honour?
Theres a lesson her for the politicians who have mismanaged the Russo Ukrainian war. Doing the necessary to have truncated the war early would have saved around a half million lives and ended the misery for the unfortunate Ukrainians.as well as other European countries. incidentally but importantly the decision to use the atomic bomb saved millions of Japanese lives and allowed the reformatting of Japan into a prosperous civilized nation. Had the fall of imperial Japan been accomplished thru a conventional invasion accompanied by amphibious invasion accompanied by a continued blockade millions of Japanese would have died thru military action and starvation. it would likely have resulted in a very repressive policy from the US following the end of the war due to high US casualties. And it likely would have resulted in a noth and south partition of Japan with northern Japan becoming a communist puppet state run by Russia. As to how THAT would have turned out you have only to look at Germany and North Korea.
Brother…the Ausies were with us every bloody step, from Java Sea to Tokyo Bay. Numbers be damned, if we can mention that crappy British Task Force we can mention our Aussie brothers.
According to post-war interviews with Japanese politicians, military officers, industrialists, and court officials conducted in the US Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan would have surrendered by November 1945 because of the air war and blockade even without the A Bombs. Operation Downfall would not have been necessary. On the other hand, the A Bombs shaved off a couple of months from the war. Without them, the USAAF would have burned down several more cities with conventional bombs. The Soviets would have taken more of Japan. The Chinese lost an average of 200,000 killed every month during the war. So there's that. Not acknowledging the conventional air war, the USSBS and likely surrender before Downfall makes this vid is a lot of blathering BS.
"It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." - General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces Under President Truman
@@AnthonyGentile-z2g He also knew the Japanese were out of oil, running out of food and petitioning for surrender (on the grounds they could keep the Emperor as a ceremonial Head of State, which they still have today).
@bellicose4653 The Japanese were NOT "ready to surrender"! In fact. even after the bombs were dropped, and after Emperor made his opinion known, a cabal of junior officers. attempted a coup to sieze his person and prevent him from announcing the surrender.
"I am absolutely convinced that had we said they could keep the emperor, together with the threat of an atomic bomb, they would have accepted, and we would never have had to drop the bomb." - John McCloy
Nice denial of the evidence. Even after Hiroshima, there were large sectors of the Japanese high command arguing that it could jot be done again. How gullible do you have to be, to accept the theory that simply telling the Japanese that we had the bomb, would have been enough?
If the disagreement had ever been the issue, Japan could've simply done what they did on August 15th when they said "We accept the Potsdam Declaration on the condition that the emperor keeps his throne." Which America accepted.
@ Yes… We have the communiques between the Japanese Government and the Japanese Embassy in neutral Switzerland, which was the conduit by which the surrender was communicated to the Allies. There were no instructions to offer a surrender prior to the bombing of Nagasaki. What the Japanese had considered negotiating previously, was a ceasefire under which they kept most or all of their captured territory. As you know, that is not a surrender. 👍
This is very personal to me. I am a good by baby, born in April, 1945 when my father was fighting in Europe. After that war ended he was sent to fight Japan. He was a squad leader in the combat engineers and his job was to disarm mines and booby traps. He was likely to have been one of the million men killed or wounded during the invasion. Because Truman dropped the bomb, I grew up with an live and uninjured father.
I am a simple man. If Jon Parshall is talking about WWII, I am watching.
Agreed
He could teach a thing or two about production sets & cost efficiencies.
Harpo Productions. . . ya watching?
Noj Production. . . 5 rolls Schumacher floral
What about the chemical and biological weapons we were going to deploy
I just wish he did more in-person talks. these 'zoom' meetings get annoying. I understood during COVID, but let's get back to normal.
In the six days between Nagasaki and the acceptance of Potsdam, more people died than were killed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WW2 killed over a million people a month for its entire duration (1937-1945). It's a no brainer
Chinese deaths averaged 200,000 each month during those years.
The "scholars" who said otherwise are morons 😂🎉😂
This was one of the best videos of the series. Congratulations
These guys, as a collective, are my favourites on this channel. They are so fascinating and clear with their information and discussion points. Great episode!!
Agreed. Jonathan Parshall & Rear Admiral Parry are great combo. Hopefully the channel has more topics to mine that would pair well with bringing back Jonathan Parshall as a guest, assuming availibility.
It must be easier to speculate what MIGHT happen in these theoretical discussions than to actually have had the weight on your shoulders making the actual decisions at the time. Knowing that hundreds of thousands and, in some scenarios, millions of lives, depending on your decision must have made it as stressful as it is possible to get.
Good discussion. It's a bit like being the "quiet one in the corner" at a university Supervision, where the others have prepared well.
Something worth commenting on is that if the Soviets had more time to be involved and could get a seat at the table for any negotiations after the peace, then there would almost certainly have been no way the Japanese Emperor gets off as lightly as he did.
The Soviets were given plenty of time and given LSTs, they didn't want to do the heavy lifting, but they wanted in on the spoils.
I was just thinking about the Falklands San Carlos scenario with attack aircraft coming overland to surprise landing ships, when the historian mentions it casually...
Allowing the USSR enough time to get more involved in Japan would've been ruinous for Japan.
If you want to see what would have happened with the USSR in Japan, look at Korea.
@@drcovell Indeed, that was one of my reference points.
(The other being West Germany- an example of the authoritarian regime eventually collapsing in order to bracket the spectrum of results of USSR involvement.)
Always enjoy both Chris and Jon together, both really smart guys and always a treat.
Jon’s shirt is always the extra guest on the podcast and I love it!
Top notch. Really enjoyed this episode. TY
This was a good one. I've said for a while that if the bombs had not been ready or had failed to be developed, Truman might very well have decided to not go ahead with Operation Downfall at all. He might have not wanted to be the guy who presided over such a great loss of U.S. military lives. They might have decided to go ahead with the firebombing and blockade. John says towards the end that the entire Japanese food distribution system would have collapsed by the Spring of '46.
Jon’s right about that, but he knows more about it than had time to mention here. Elsewhere (on the _Unauthorized History of the Pacific War_ channel), in discussions about postwar Japan, Jon mentions that the 1945 rice crop suffered a disastrous failure, and the Japanese were in for mass starvation in late 1945 into 1946. Had the war not ended when it did, MacArthur wouldn’t have been able to bring in the foodstocks that saved postwar Japanese from starvation.
No, the US was committed to invading Japan. In the weeks from May 1945, the US and UK were redeploying troops, and air and naval assets to the Japanese theatre. They would have spent nine months of building forces up and training the troops.
How many Japanese would have died by then?
@@johnhallett5846 go by the earlier text; one million per month worldwide multiplied by ratio of Japanese to total population.
@@ernestcote3398 Well into double digits
With the hive mind thinking in Japan of the day, had US forces landed in Japan ,besides Japanese troops, mass formations of civilians with sharpened bamboo doing human wave charges would have been encountered.With the firepower possessed by US forces of the day, and the animosity in the heart of the US, The realization of Adm William Halsey ' s prediction of " The only place Japanese will be spoken is in Hell when we are through with them" would have come to pass.
I most likely would have never been born if the bombs had not been dropped. My mom's dad was in the 11th airborne division and would've been one of the first to go into Japan. Odds are he would've been killed and my mom wouldn't have been born
My dad was also in the 11th Airborne and I know that if we had invaded with Operation Olympic, I would have never been born.
The British DID re-establish themselves in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. That is not counterfactual. Whereas, if the French could have held on to Vietnam, that would have been.
I also found that an odd comment as the British did re-establish themselves in Burma, Malaya and Singapore. Burma did become independent in 1948 along with India and Pakistan which I think was too soon considering what a screwed up country Myanmar is now. Malaysia and Singapore are stable successful countries. The Netherlands did try to re-establish themselves in Indonesia but not successfully. I have read that the RN getting involved in the Pacific was to ensure that the British could re-establish British presence in Hong Kong.
@@kevinrayner5812There is a fascinating book called Mountbatten's Samurai. It deals with how soldiers of the IJN were used to help re-establish colonial rule especially Vietnam.
@@philipebbrell2793 I wonder if I can go a bit off topic here. Burma had been very largely recovered in 1945 before the final Japanese surrender in September 1945. The next stage to plan the retake Malaya and to invade Thailand was underway. I have searched and searched and I can't anything about how the invasion of Thailand was to take place. I know that the Japanese had moved POWs to the east of Thailand. I assume the invasion would have followed the route of the Burma Siam railway. A what if video of the Japanese winning at Imphal and Kohima would be interesting then analysis of the situation in SE Asia if the A bomb had not been dropped and invasion of Thailand and Malaya had taken place.
@@philipebbrell2793 Disarmed Japanese soldiers were certainly re-armed by the French. In different circumstances, the Japanese army was invited to Singapore by the British in 1918, to quell civilian unrest.
Interesting note: American Army medics saved the lives of Ho Chi Min and what became his Politburo, when they were dying of various diseases in 1945.
No matter how the war ended, if the Truman decided to not use the bomb, it would have ended his career. Even losing only the least number of troops, just imagine what would happen when it became known that almost 1/4 of the entire cost of the war was spent on a secret weapon which could have ended the way in a few days with no further loss of life, but was not used for whatever reason. I know that one of the people wanting Truman impeached would have been my mother. My father, an MD who served in Africa and Europe, had developed high blood pressure and angina from the stresses of the war, but had orders to report to San Diego to join the invasion fleet. Despite not having to go he was dead within a year. If there was an invasion he surely would have died over there. But that’s just one personal issue. As general Groves said in his book, if the bomb hadn’t worked he would have spent the rest of his life in congressional hearings trying to justify spending so much money. To actually have a working bomb but not use it would have been worse. Truman became president in April which is when he first learned of the bomb. He inherited a war of ‘unconditional surrender’ and the atom bomb from a 4 time elected president, the only president many people ever knew, and to suddenly make such big changes would have been political suicide. After V E Day people at home were anxious for the war to. be. OVER. The public was demanding an end to rationing, and for troops who had been in the pacific since the beginning to come home. Ending the war too early by negotiating a surrender without having control of what happened inside Japan would have just set the stage for another war 10-20 years later. As it is, we still had 2 wars because we thought we needed Russia’s help. Without Russia’s support there wouldn’t have been a partition of Korea or Vietnam. For just two weeks of Russian support we suffered two wars. I knew thousands of people who fought in the war, from 7 years working at a VA hospital and in my private practice as a physician. The vast majority of combat vets supported using the bomb. Remember, no one really understood the true effects of a nuclear weapon. Most people involved simply thought of it as just a much bigger bomb. The effects of radiation both long and short term wasn’t understood. As an example, in the 30s people bought radioactive toothpaste with thorium in it. There’s a saying that hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to something like this foresight is blind.
In 2024, we're still awarding Purple Heart medals that were minted in preparation for Downfall. They made that many, anticipating horrific casualties.
Good video! Usually, I find your content to be highly informative, but a bit longish in delivery. On this one, I wished it went on even longer! Well done!
When I consider the Atomic bombing of Japan. I ask myself. If Japan had an Atomic Bomb, would they have hesitated to use it?
Genda flat out admitted that they would have with no hesitation
It would have been never an issue to them.
100% they would have used it first. Whether it was on the US troops or British Empire troops would be the only discussion.
they would have hesitated, because they had no reliable delivery system. If they built a weapon of US weight and dimension they could not deliver it by air.
@@luketaper9401 I think there's a legit argument that an attempt by submarine into one of our ports (or even Pearl Harbor) might have at least been possible, though not necessarily successful...or even impactful.
I heard that the USA with the number of casualties they expected produced vast quantities of Purple Hearts (the medal given to wounded military) that they are still using the stocks from that time.
I had heard the same so i did some googling :
"During World War II, 1,506,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured, many in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. By the end of the war, even accounting for medals lost, stolen, or wasted, nearly 500,000 remained"
That is true.
Not true anymore. They did recently run out a few years ago.
Superbly done, gentlemen! And Jon, this is almost shaping up to be another *_Three Amigos_* gig for you, second only to your triumvirate with Seth and Captain Bill over on the brilliant _Unauthorized History of the Pacific War_ channel…er, except that this gig is missing the electric Kool-Aid Acid psychedelic shirts. 😎
Jon’s camo shirt 9/10
Good to see jon again 👍
Interesting topic. Thank you.
For those who are against the atomic bombs being dropped, here's something to seriously think about. If you had a father, grandfather, or great-grandfather fight in WWII (or would've become eligible for military service had the war lasted a couple of more years) and he was sent to fight in the invasion of Japan (or on the Japanese side, had to help defend Japan) and he dies, you don't exist. If the casualty estimates ended up being accurate or higher than expected, you end up having fewer boomers, fewer Gen Xers, fewer millennials, fewer Gen Zers, etc. as a result.
Had either one of my grandfathers been killed (one was in the war as a member of the Army Air Corps, the other would've been eligible for military service had the war lasted longer), I don't exist.
The main reason Operation Downfall did not occur stems from two factors. One is not having enough forces without withdrawing from the European theater, with estimates of a need of 1.5 million to make it work. Two, the battles of Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, and the proposed invasion of Korea were taking way too long and costing way too many lives. On top of that, none of the allies were in any shape to respond after the war in Europe. This is proven with what would be considered a token task force from the Commonwealth forces with two carriers, two battleships, a cruiser, and 9 destroyers that were a mix of Australian, Canadian, and British forces to the sea part of the plan and having only 2 divisions from Australia. The estimated end of the war would be the beginning of 1947 which was considered too much for American planners. The option of the bombs being used to counter what would be viewed as a bloodletting of epic proportions was only after FDR died because people were becoming war-weary and wanted it to END!
This was great , so interesting.
Good logistical point made by Parshall about Iwo Jima.
DL Giangreco is a good read on "Downfall" sourcing military plans both sides and Soviet archives. We had a completely separate and necassarilly secretive Lend Lease agreement with the USSR focused on Manchuria that included Liberty Ships and training merchant crews for them down to uniforms for the Soviet troops.
Richard Frank is also good but what Giangreco sees in the Japanese strategy of "Redoubt" to force negotiations might've been more viable than we'd like to admit depending on our casualties. Giangreco's book: "Hell to Pay" 2nd edition is pretty detailled in the preperations perhaps heavy towards the Japansee plans. I've yet to read Richard Frank past "Tower of Skulls" which I also recommend.
He also pointed out that the Emporer's directive made the Soviet advances in Manchuria as successful as it was as most troops in Manchuria were commanded by officers convinced by Hirohito's inner circle of spokesmen to retain fidelity to the Emporer's directive.
Would make a great scifi episode.
People with good intentions uses a time machine to prevent the success of the US atomic bomb program.
Returns to the present to see the USSR in control of the world.
The one I’ve waited for. Thank you!!
The Island of Kyushu was invaded in the 4th Century and Honshu in the 4-5th Century, by iron-armored Horseriders from the 3 Kingdoms from Iron Age Korea. See the book *Korean Impact on Japanese Culture: Japan’s Hidden History* by Covell, which examines Korean-Japanese relations from ancient prehistory up to the Japanese Colonial Period.
A great channel
Great discussion!!!
I'm with Jon and his comment about the effect of a potential blockade and when 1946 came, Japan would have been starving. Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech also referred to the bad domestic situation. I've heard one US military historian speculate that he was referring to the recent bad domestic rice harvest. Even before the war, Japan needed to import food. If their domestic production was lowered, combined with the strengthening allied blockade, they didn't have the food to feed their people and that was going to be felt almost immediately. You combined that with allied airpower destroying their infrastructure and their ability to move what food they had around, you are looking at mass starvation in parts of Japan. I don't see Japan having the literal strength to fight beyond 1946. Never mind the fact that their ability to produce weapons and ammunition would have been mostly destroyed before then. Just the numbers of Japanese that would have died massively outweigh those that died in the atomic bombings, never mind the numbers that would have died in areas still under Japanese occupation.
Best yet guys
Casualty rates were in the 1M plus range. The bombs saved lives on both sides
Unrestricted US submarine warfare was decisive in strangling Japan. The invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall) was never contemplated and certainly wouldn't have cost hundreds of thousands of US lives. US Losses in the Pacific up to 1945 was 68,000. The US was prepared to quarantine Japan and wait it out but that became moot when Russia entered the war against Japan in Manchuria. The first shot of the Cold War was the dropping of the first atomic bomb. It was a warning to the Soviets as well as England and France not to interfere.
Its real simple folks, if you see a video with Jon Parshall you watch it
i enjoy this show sooo much thank you
I often wonder if the bombs had not been dropped in 1945, exposing the general population the destructive power of nuclear weapons, would the Cold War have escalated to a full blown nuclear conflict?
Fascinating.
If Truman had not used the bomb, Dewey would have been elected as President in 1948!
Truman would have been impeached and since there was no 25th amendment to replace the VP if he became President, the Speaker of the house would have become President, which would have been Sam Rayburn at the time.
Nah, Truman wouldn't have been impeached, (it was a different time), but he would have lost the confidence of the American people!@@johnharris6655
Sam Rayburn was the Speaker of the House in 1946! That would have one of the worst of the "Dixiecrats" even worse than LBJ 20years later!
What if Japan didn’t surrender after the second atomic bomb, and operation downfall has to proceed using atomic bombs as tactical nukes?
A third bomb was on the way out to be dropped. It was expected that there would be an extra bomb every few weeks.
The truth of the matter is that the A-Bombs would've been ineffectual to use as tactical weapons, except for destroying something like a strategic bridge or airfield. We would've just been irradiating our troops on the beaches for not much gain.
Also the dropping of the bombs demonstrated to Stalin that the US didn't need any help in defeating the Japanese and thus position the US in the Eastern Asia zone of influence.
A lot of average people don’t even know that the same time the bombs were dropped the Soviet Union invaded Japan.
Yeah that 1,2 combo coming in just 10 days of 2 nukes, a Soviet invasion, and the threat of more bombs was the only senerio where Japan surrendered without an invasion. Cant do it without one or the other
My dad was in 1st Calvary Division. I wouldn't be chatting with you right now!
At the time of the surrender, my dad was sitting in the Philippines as part of the 5th Cav waiting to participate in the invasion. There is a good chance I and my 8 siblings wouldn't be here either.
Your best production yet, an incredible episode. I think the only thing you missed is that Chiang Kai-shek might've had more support to defeat Mao. A stretch I know but the communisation of Asia might not've happened.
A very good point. Had the Nationalists defeated the Communists, the Cold War may have also played out differently. Certainly Vietnam wouldn't have occurred.
Japan surrendered due to the atomic bomb. Japanese commanders wanted to fight to the death and take as many of the enemy with them as possible. The A-bomb made the Japanese leaders realize that the allies could destroy their country from the air without setting foot in Japan. Further resistance would be futile. The Japanese surrendered 6 days after the 2nd use of a nuclear weapon. Case closed.
Jon's shirt messed up the german atomic program!
If the Atomic Bombs had been not used, would there have been Godzilla-Movies in Japan?
As far as I know, the experience of those drops had been one of the major motivations for making the Godzilla movies in the first place.
The people that made that movie, or there parents, probably would have been dead.
Great discussion. Much appreciated. However, it would have been instructive to have a panelist with a different perspective.
I think the contribution of the British Pacific Fleet is terribly unstated in the pacific war. While Adm King didn't want us there he did come cap in hand asking us for an aircraft carrier when the US navy was down to one serviceable carrier, Saratoga, after the loss of Hornet at the battle of Santa Cruz. So in 1943 HMS Victorious then operates with US Navy as USS Robin, for which Nimitz was very grateful and gave us all the logistic support we needed, which gave British FAA pilots the necessary experience for working with the US Navy, flying Hellcats, Avengers and Corsairs. Yes the British saw the political and military necessity of re-establishing themselves in the old empire but that was only part of it, defeating Japan was the prime concern.
One thing not said here is the the US asked the Soviets to intervene against Japan at the Yalta onference in February 1945. An agreemnent was made for the USSR to intervene commencing on August 15, 1945. The first bomb was used on the 6th and the Soviets moved their offensive date forward to the 9th. The scale of the offensive and the combat strength of the two opposing forces was notable. The Japanese were practically unable to stop the Soviet heavy tanks rolling forward and the Manchurian Japanese army was practically destroyed within a week. This did have an effect on the Japanese decision to surrender. They wisely realised that the Soviets may be given an occupation zone in Japan itself, something they were very worried about. The western Allies also changed their unconditional surrender demand to concede that the Emperor should be allowed to stay on as Japans god like ruler, if in name only. This concession helped change the Japanese mindset on continuing the war.
Surely the Soviets would keep rolling on to Paris if a non-trivial component of the armies in the European Theatre were redirected.
You are right, I never thought about that scenario.
Except VE Day happened in May of 45, and Downfall was scheduled in August of 45
@@scottl9660Downfall was scheduled for the Beginning and Summer of 46’ at least the Tokyo portion that needed the most troops
Thank you for this video. I conforms what I have said/ment for a long time that because of the willingness of the Japanese people to die for Japan/Emperor, the cost in both military and civilian lives would have bin much higher.
The actual mechanism of the Japanese decision to surrender is still not widely known. It is true that the energy of the abomb, 18k tons, is larger than say a 1000 bomber raid, say 3k tons, the effective damage is not hugely different. The Japanese were aware of theory of the bomb, and also that it is very difficult resource intensive to produce enough fissile material.
Hence after the first bomb, it was agreed it was an A-bomb, the hard core continue the war faction staked their reputation that another bomb would not happen for months. When the second bomb occurred only days later, they lost face, and that gave opening for the surrender faction to sway the emperor
Population of Japan in 1945 was 75 million, not 100 million
Didn't they mention that? I thought I heard that in the video.
The Japanese themselves used the 100 million number.
@@stephenyoung3721 Yes, and we could add they had already demonstrated they were more than willing to sacrifice the lives of their "colonies" like the Koreans and "marginally Japanese" like the Okinawans.
I think they just mentioned the nr 70 million !?
The 100 million was most likely hyperbole, especially given how detached Japanese high command were from reality by then
More cold hard discussion with these two guests please.
If japan had ended up blockaged and firebombed eould there been an orginized goverment left to surender? For example the Tokyo area imported over 98 percent of its food and between subs cutting off coastal shipping and bombing raids cutting the rail network there would have been bmass starvation and civil uprisings
As the speakers said in the beginning, there was more to the equation than the Japanese. Over 200k allied civilians in Japan, 750k of allied civilians dieing per month in surrounding countries.
There would have been MILLIONS OF CASUALTIES. DOING THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE OF ALL, FOR ALL.
I've long been a fan of a genre of writing called "Alternative History" or "Counterfactualism". You make one change to a historic timeline, the change being as small and as creible as possible, and then speculate on what that change wrought.
On this exact subject, I've read quite a few such speculative pieces. One posited that the US went ahead with the first part of Downfall, Olympic, which was the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan proper. It turned out that our intel drastically underestimated the number of Japanese troops on the island, with there being a new parity between the number of attackers and defenders. This is not a recipe for a successful invasion. The piece envisioned a stalemate lasting long enough for the Soviet Union to expand their toehold on Sakhalin Island and invade the Japanese home islands. At this point, invaded from north and south, I think the Japanese would have been forced to surrender, with the result that there likely would have been a Communist Northern Japan and a Free Southern Japan with Tokyo being partitioned the way Berlin was.
The second piece I recall dealt with an expansion of the strategic bombing campaign, including additional firebombing where appropriate (although by August 1945 there weren't many cities that hadn't been firebombed). The Inland Sea had been mined to the point that ship traffic was virtually at a standstill. The Japanese home islands could not grow enough food to feed their populace, and the ways by which food (and fuel) was transported was becoming increasingly fragile. Post-war evaluation of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign found that, as devastating to infrastructure as the real campaign had been, it would have been even more devastating had we concentrated on Japan's limited railroad network. This would have brought down Japan quickly, but was likely to have the result of causing a multi-year famine among the Japanese population.
Probably more interesting question is what if after two bombs dropped Japan would not surrender? They would have realized that Americans had been bluffing as there were no more bombs. Quite possibly the taboo of atomic weapons would have never been established as other countries could think: look at them, they absorbed two hits and fought on.
An excellent analysis. I'd never thought about the hostages before: the civilian populations of the occupied territories and the POWs. An immediate forced capitulation saved millions and even tens of millions of lives. Add to that the Japanese culture that surrender was a disgrace: in Okinawa, thousands of civilians committed suicide. The same would likely have happened in Japan. Finally, the big unanswered question: why were civilian targets chosen? That is why today the atomic bombs and the firebombings are widely regarded as atrocities. It's a pity you skirted that.
Surprised they do not mention Korea, a war that drags on till November means Soviets have taken all of Korea, amphibious ability to take Hokkaido is debatable, but on the mainland nothing is stopping them.
The 3rd A bomb would have been ready by August 19th. Read Richard Frank's "Downfall"
Great shows and love the people but the maps they use always seem way too big. The map john brought was much better
A larger map of Japan would have been more helpful.
'Pressurising'
Was operation unthinkable covered before?
yes
There is a book titled "Downfall' that covers the subject.
You really don't know your British history if you think that Britain would have taken the opportunity to reestablish its empire in the area.
The Empire had been bleeding Britain dry well before WW1 due to changing mindsets, it became the British people's responsibility to raise up and improve all the countries in the empire. The British built and staffed schools and hospitals in India and other countries, it was costing far more than Britain was gaining. There was a ban on claik8ng new territories for Britain, but British officers ignored the order and did it anyway. They knew that the British government would be forced to publicly praise them and reward them, also it advanced their military careers.
Pre WW1 Britain was done with empire, it was only old school die hards that wanted to maintain the empire no matter the cost.
A disgraced MacArthur, is he around to save the ROC with that counter invasion?
Any chance that war goes a different way with some other general in command when Pusan was being defended?
In another world he might not have used it so quickly after the first test, there is an argument to save them till Oct Nov and use multiple in run up to invasion. There is a theory of what if the first test fails so there is a delay while they re work plan, there is no President if he has the option of not using them at all.
In reality, the US had two reasons to drop the bombs. The first was to achieve Japan’s defeat. Second to put Stalin on notice not to roll over Europe and keep out of Japan. Surely had Germany and Japan not surrendered, the same replay would have played out 20 years after the end of WWII, like it did 20 years after WWI. The Nazis and Japanese Nationalists were deeply engrained in government and their respective societies.
If I had been President during the spring and summer of 1945 I would have simply told the Japanese that they are going to be occupied by either the Americas... or the Soviets?!? Now Choose!!
Would the Chinese Civil War happen?
BTW, Germany offered peace to Britain and the later the USA too, while they were winning BIG on very generous terms from after the Polish campaign and the French campaign until FDR decided (only after Stalingrad) to demand unconditional surrender. Saying that Germany should have surrendered unconditionally to the Soviet Union is just idiotic. Japan would have sued for peace too if given an option. Ignoring FDR and his Unconditional Surrender
demand is ignoring the 800lb gorilla in the room.
I think John dowplays the Soviet "intervention" to much, they did after all cruch a very large IJA force in very short order !
The Soviets would have swept even further south into China, what happens then?
If dewey ins in 48 you may have a democratic Eisenhower in 52.
Noone is trying to even consider an option of conditional surrender? Like Japan figuring this is pointless but US also figuring that Japan was paved enough and the cost of that last mile being too high ?
The US was in revenge mode
What would the conditional surrender have meant. I don't think that the Chinese would have been happy with that. They were the ones who paid the highest price.
@@andrewnlarsen Remind me of the figures quoted. It was 700,000 combatants and civilian deaths per month? Every 2 months it went on that was 1.4 million deaths. what would this conditional surrender consisted of, the Japanese surrendering with honour?
Surrender with honor is incompatible with the martial traditions of Japan.
Theres a lesson her for the politicians who have mismanaged the Russo Ukrainian war.
Doing the necessary to have truncated the war early would have saved around a half million lives and ended the misery for the unfortunate Ukrainians.as well as other European countries.
incidentally but importantly the decision to use the atomic bomb saved millions of Japanese lives and allowed the reformatting of Japan into a prosperous civilized nation.
Had the fall of imperial Japan been accomplished thru a conventional invasion accompanied by amphibious invasion accompanied by a continued blockade millions of Japanese would have died thru military action and starvation.
it would likely have resulted in a very repressive policy from the US following the end of the war due to high US casualties. And it likely would have resulted in a noth and south partition of Japan with northern Japan becoming a communist puppet state run by Russia.
As to how THAT would have turned out you have only to look at Germany and North Korea.
The atomic bomb wasn't just about forcing the surrender of Japan, it was also a message to Stalin.
A message he had already received.
Sorry. No evidence for that. Just another conspiracy theory attempting to portray Hiroshima and Nagasaki as militarily unnecessary.
The Soviet Union is the country that destroyed Germany. They became close allies to the NATO allies. The ones from the wawst
It’s nice of you to mention Australians here but it’s really not necessary. The numbers don’t justify it.
Brother…the Ausies were with us every bloody step, from Java Sea to Tokyo Bay. Numbers be damned, if we can mention that crappy British Task Force we can mention our Aussie brothers.
The nuclear bombs saved Allied and Japanese lives. Case closed.
According to post-war interviews with Japanese politicians, military officers, industrialists, and court officials conducted in the US Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan would have surrendered by November 1945 because of the air war and blockade even without the A Bombs. Operation Downfall would not have been necessary. On the other hand, the A Bombs shaved off a couple of months from the war. Without them, the USAAF would have burned down several more cities with conventional bombs. The Soviets would have taken more of Japan. The Chinese lost an average of 200,000 killed every month during the war. So there's that. Not acknowledging the conventional air war, the USSBS and likely surrender before Downfall makes this vid is a lot of blathering BS.
"It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse."
- General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold
Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces Under President Truman
On the verge of collapse yes, on the verge of surrender no.
"The Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
-- General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Easy for him to say, he wasn't going to land in Kyushu or command a bloodbath.
@@AnthonyGentile-z2g He also knew the Japanese were out of oil, running out of food and petitioning for surrender (on the grounds they could keep the Emperor as a ceremonial Head of State, which they still have today).
Are there any facts to back that up?
@bellicose4653 The Japanese were NOT "ready to surrender"! In fact. even after the bombs were dropped, and after Emperor made his opinion known, a cabal of junior officers. attempted a coup to sieze his person and prevent him from announcing the surrender.
@@bellicose4653 No, the video covered the internal discussions pretty well. Eisenhower just didn't know the details.
'A bit silly' is the UK trying to saber rattle against anyone when it can't even take care of itself.
You are aware of what was happening in Burma?
Tell me you are clueless about history without telling me. I assume you are another Monday morning quarterback.
*What if the US HAD never dropped the atomic bomb and HAD invaded Japan?
Why does your channel never get this right?
What are you going on about? The title is perfectly readable as-is, and to my ears sounds more natural than this version
"I am absolutely convinced that had we said they could keep the emperor, together with the threat of an atomic bomb, they would have accepted, and we would never have had to drop the bomb."
- John McCloy
Thanks again for coming here to argue your agenda while completely ignoring the content of the video.
Nice denial of the evidence.
Even after Hiroshima, there were large sectors of the Japanese high command arguing that it could jot be done again.
How gullible do you have to be, to accept the theory that simply telling the Japanese that we had the bomb, would have been enough?
If the disagreement had ever been the issue, Japan could've simply done what they did on August 15th when they said "We accept the Potsdam Declaration on the condition that the emperor keeps his throne."
Which America accepted.
@ Yes…
We have the communiques between the Japanese Government and the Japanese Embassy in neutral Switzerland, which was the conduit by which the surrender was communicated to the Allies. There were no instructions to offer a surrender prior to the bombing of Nagasaki.
What the Japanese had considered negotiating previously, was a ceasefire under which they kept most or all of their captured territory. As you know, that is not a surrender. 👍