Board Thread:New on Alternative History/@comment-99.22.178.235-20130524022357

INVASION OF JAPAN REVISITED
In reference to the previous page, where it is suggested the Empire of Japan crushed the Allied invasion "until Japan was able to make a complete breakthrough and recovery." This rosy (from the Japanese perspective) outcome seems extremely unlikely when we consider the preponderance of forces arrayed against Imperial Japan.

A simple perusal of Wikipedia, without doing any in-depth research, indicated the Imperial Army by August 1945 had a strength of some 900,000 soldiers - some 65 divisions, but with only enough equipment for 40 and enough ammunition for about 30 divisions. The Japanese Army and Navy had assembled over 10,000 aircraft for Kamikaze use; the kamikaze attack was the backbone of their strategy and represented their best chance of stopping an Allied invasion fleet. Their most serious lack was trained pilots and a huge shortage of fuel for training flights. The Imperial Navy, once the pride of Japan, was a mere shadow of its former glory. Crippled by lack of fuel for naval units, it represented little real threat. As for strategy, the "stop them at the beaches" theory had been used during the middle stages of the American island-hopping campaign and discarded later in the war in favor of better use of favorable terrain. At Peleau, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, this strategy proved more effective in producing American casualties. On the home islands, the Imperial decision was to use a combination approach: the bulk of the defenders were to be concentrated near the beaches but far enough back to avoid the worst of pre-invasion bombardments. A heavy remaining force would be held further back to launch counterattacks.

Operation Downfall
The Allied invasion plan envisioned a series of landings on southern Kyushu on November 1, 1945 - Operation Olympic. It would be followed by Operation Coronet on March 1, 1946, an invasion of Honshu on the Kanto Plains, to be followed by a drive to capture Tokyo. The amphibious force for Coronet alone would be twice the size of that assembled for the Normandy invasion. Allied plans proposed an invasion force of some five million troops. Total Allied casualties were estimated variously from 250,000 to 1.2 million. After Okinawa, the Allies had plans to counter the Kamikaze threat: a diversionary fleet sent to the beaches before the actual invasion, and a vastly increased number of fighter planes to attack incoming suicide bombers. How well these would have worked is, of course, open to question.

The Althistory suggestion, then, of Japan "able to make a complete breakthrough and recovery" and triumph, is unlikely in the extreme. Imperial military strategy was predicated on causing enough Allied casualties to force a negotiated peace rather than a total surrender. It is possible that this approach might have worked, at least to the point of holding Allied forces at bay for several weeks - whether this could have forced negotiations is also open to question. The Joint Chiefs were expecting very heavy casualties. Japanese casualties, based on the last few campaigns of the war, would have been even more horrendous.

Further, even if the Japanese had succeeded as the Althistory page suggests - or more likely, succeeded in holding back the Allied forces for a period of weeks: the American military still had the atomic bomb. It has been estimated that seven to fifteen atomic bombs would have been available by the planned invasion date. Even if the Americans originally decided not to use the atomic bomb, I think that 150,000 casualties and a stalled invasion would have resulted in a decison to start using atomic bombs rather than to negotiate with Japan.

Sadly, the far more likely outcome for Imperial Japan throwing back the initial Allied invasion would have been a Japan devastated by numerous atomic strikes, even more bombing and firebombing of its cities, and an unknown but horrific number of dead and wounded on both sides. I'll take the outcome we actually got, thanks - even considering the awful devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Thorondin 