Talk:Operation Downfall

Numbers of Japanese

Back in July, SamMcGowan added

Japanese records obtained after the war indicate that these estimates were grossly exaggerated. Japanese Monograph 23 ("Air Defense of the Homeland") revealed that at the end of the war Japan only had 2,000 airplanes available for the defense of Japan,of which only some 500 were combat aircraft. Some 1,500 had been equipped for suicide missions. Postwar interrogations of the Japanese generals responsible for the defense of Kyushu revealed that only 800 aircraft, conventional as well as Kamikaze, were expected to be available to defend against the invasion and that they were expected to operate from airfields in Korea.

That's a lot lower than other estimates. Frank cites the SBS: 4,800 Japanese Army aircraft plus 5,900 Navy aircraft. "While the Strategic Bombing Survey numbers appear sound, there is conflicting evidence for numbers both higher and lower. An officer at Imperial General Headquarters charged with planning aircraft availability calculated that in July the Imperial Army had 6,355 aircraft and that this total would grow to 7,346 by October. On the other hand, an Imperial Navy officer reported the Imperial Navy had ... a total of 5,044, significantly below the Strategic Bombing Survey estimate."(Downfall, p.183)

As with other Allied intelligence estimates, postwar interrogation of Japanese generals responsible for the defense of Kyushu revealed that they were overestimated. Actual Japanese strength on the island was roughly 700,000 personnel, but less than half were combat troops, with the remainder consisting of support troops, naval trainees and the crews of Japanese ships that had been put out of action due to the lack of fuel.

That's not actually out of line with Allied estimates. "According to [the Military Intelligence Service's August 7] tally, 560,000 men, including 460,000 ground-combat troops, stood vigil on Kyushu. ... In the final revision of this estimate on August 20, the total on Kyushu reached 625,000 men and fourteen field divisions."(p.203)
—wwoods 23:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

83.249.74.35 added these bits again, and I've taken them out, again. At a minimum they belong in the section on Japanese plans, not Allied plans. But without some reason to believe them over numbers from other Japanese sources, I don't think they belong at all.
—wwoods 08:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

And this is back again, from User:67.128.187.214

The ground troop strength doesn't actually disagree with what's already there:

"Imperial Japanese Army forces consisted of some 350,000 men, ..." vs.

"Estimated troop strength in early July was 350,000, ..."

But the airplane numbers are way too low:

"However, when the officials of the Japanese Second General Army were interrogated by US Sixth Army intelligence officers, they revealed that only 800 bombers were available for conventional and "crash-landing" attack, with an additional reserve of 70% held to defend against invasion of the Kanto Plain."

This is based on

AIR DEFENSE:

12. Q. How many combat-type planes would have been committed to the attack on amphibious units of the Allied landing forces, how would these have been employed (That is, in kamikaze, high and low level bombing, dive-bombing, torpedo bombing, or baka-launching tactics), and what percentage would have been held in reserve for use against later invasion forces?

A. The number of bombers which would have been employed to attack Allied landing units was about 800, of which most were special attack types (kamikaze). Storming planes, bombers and fighters would have been ultimately transformed into crash-landing planes. They would have been used for dive-bombing (blasting) from midair (altitude 1,000 to 2,000 meters), while bombing altitude would be lower than 200 meters. Reserves against later invasion forces were almost all units in KOREA and the KANTO area, about 70 percent against the above 800 planes.

From the Combined Arms Research Library document.

I don't know what to make of that. Checking Frank, on page 182 there's a table of available Japanese aircraft. Included in the total of 10,700 there are 900 Army "combat types" assigned to suicide units. Maybe that's what the guy being interviewed is referring to?

For now I'm reverting. —WWoods (talk) 08:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Weren't the kamikaze planes older fighters and bombers with some extra explosives inside? Also, the Combined Arms Research Library does not seem work with Windows 7 and XP SP3 an SP2, so the majority of people might not be able to use it. Noghiri (talk) 23:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Alternate history

They got cut from the article a while ago, but the alternate history treatments of the invasions,

• Westheimer, David, Lighter than a Feather. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1971. (Olympic)
• Coppel, Alfred, The Burning Mountain. Harcourt Brace & Co, 1983. (Coronet)

are worth reading, for people interested in the subject. Particularly Westheimer's, which sparked my interest in the subject way back when. [http://www.amazon.com/Death-Lighter-Feather-David-Westheimer/dp/0929398904/sr=1-1/qid=1165453810/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-3261025-6768602?ie=UTF8&s=books Apparently it was reissued] as Death Is Lighter Than a Feather back in '95, but for a paperback it's very pricey; a library would be a better source.
—wwoods 01:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Curiously, there seem to be not one but two new novels about the invasion of Japan coming out in May:

• [http://www.amazon.com/MacArthurs-War-Novel-Invasion-Japan/dp/0765312875/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_2/102-1756902-2697721?ie=UTF8&qid=1173454707&sr=1-9 MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan] by Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson
• [http://www.amazon.com/1945-Novel-Robert-Conroy/dp/0345494792/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_3/102-1756902-2697721?ie=UTF8&qid=1173454707&sr=1-9 1945: A Novel] by Robert Conroy

—wwoods 16:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

...and MacArthur's War specifically cites this article in its "Historical Notes"!

—wwoods 06:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Recognition indeed... John Birmingham went one better, having Stalin(!) actually mention Wikipedia in his parodic alternate history Final Impact: "Stalin hammered the desk with his fist, once, making a water jug jump two centimeters off the polished walnut surface. '... I do not want to be quoted old Wikipedia articles about this new [B-52] bomber.'" (In Birmingham scenario, a 21st Century fleet finds itself in 1942 ... leading in a roundabout way to the Soviets getting the bomb and nuking Litzmannstadt and Tokyo.)

Usually novelists just plagiarise us ;-) Grant | Talk 07:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

SWEEEEEET :) Raul654 19:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Another way to look at an alternative timeline is through simulation gaming - see:

• Operation Olympic by SPI —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamesbook (talk • contribs) 07:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Another new alternate history look at Downfall (and, specifically, Olympic) hit the shelves last week, Chuck Dixon's comic book miniseries Storming Paradise. What's more, it looks to me like the map that the artist had MacArthur using in his briefing of other flag officers came *straight* from this article! Rdfox 76 (talk) 21:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Two of the three maps used in this article came straight from the MacArthur Reports (a huge multi-volume collection of MacArthur's staff reports during the course of the war). I got them from my local federal depository library and scanned them. It's entirely possible Dixon got them from the reports as well. Raul654 (talk) 17:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Indian Army

My recollection is that MacArthur didn't really want any non-American troops, and treated the Australians rather badly, for no reason. But I don't have a copy of Keegan. It could be.
—wwoods 02:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

For reasons best known to himself, in 1944 Doug even turned an offer of the Australian I Corps for the Philippines campaign, saying that he could use a single division. This was unacceptable to Australian leaders, no doubt remembering the ill-use of Australian Army divisions by British generals in WW1, not to mention the disasters in Greece and Malaya-Singapore during 1941-42. So no Australian ground forces took part in the Philippines. Grant | Talk 10:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Soviet invasion of Japan in World War II

Does anyone know anything about this? We don't seem to have an article on it. Operation Downfall says: "Unbeknownst to the Americans, the Soviets were preparing to follow up their invasions of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands with an invasion of the weakly defended island of Hokkaidō by the end of August, which would have put pressure on the Allies to do something sooner than November." No source is given, but there are some mentions of it on the web. Grant | Talk 10:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

What I know is what I read in Frank's Downfall which I've quoted here. Frank's source is David M. Glantz, "The Soviet Invasion of Japan," Quarterly Journal of Military History, vol. 7, no. 3, Spring 1995. Frank's description makes it sound like an invasion on a shoestring, but he thinks it had a good chance of success.

Google has much of Glantz's book, The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945: August Storm (2003), but it's missing most of Chapter 10, which covers "the Aborted Hokkaido Offensive".

—wwoods 18:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks w. Grant | Talk 15:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

So it seems that a poster using the handle "XXzoonamiXX" had added a bit of text in the section on "Soviet intentions" with a source that doesn't actually support any of the text he/she posted. This was done on the 15 February 2014 and the text in question reads:

"At the time of Japan's surrender, an estimated 50,000 Japanese soldiers were stationed in Hokkaido. If the Soviets attempted to land at Hokkaido with limited naval capability, it would have run high up to 20,000 Soviet casualties each week or month which would easily destroy the Soviet's will to wage war against the Japanese."

Upon reading it yesterday I thought it looked rather suspicious, so I checked the source (I have a copy of Richard B. Frank's Downfall here in front of me) and pages 324-325 of the book say absolutely nothing about "50,000 Japanese soldiers" being "stationed in Hokkaido", or about "20,000 Soviet casualities each week or month which would easily destroy the Soviet's will to wage war against the Japanese". In fact the only mention of Hokkaido is on page 324 in which it refers to the Truman-Stalin correspondence on Hokkaido and Stalin's subsequent indefinite halt of the planned Hokkaido landing.

Given that the source has nothing to do with what XXzoonamiXX claims it says, it might well be the case that most or all of XXzoonamiXX's contributions to this article are also similarly suspect and perhaps also false.72.27.179.183 (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

References

Alternatives to Downfall?

Frank's book (cited frequently above) discusses whether, aside from the A-bombs, there were alternatives to an invasion, such as blockade. Does it seem worthwhile to add a section on whether an invasion was even necessary, again assuming the A-bombs hadn't been available? --Andersonblog 15:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

That would seem to be redundant with Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If we were to add such a section, it must make it clear - as Frank's book does - that Japan was not going to surrender short of an invasion and a final decisive battle. (Not to mention that the food shortages of 1946-1949 would have been infinitely worse without American food shipments, and with the destruction of Japan's railroad system that would have preceeded an invasion) Raul654 15:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Good call ... I've added a link to it under a "See also" section ... Happy Editing! —72.75.65.41 20:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Redlinks

Is there any likelihood that the redlinks in the article will become articles soon? If not I propose that they be de-linked. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 02:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Confusing sentence

In the section Allied reevaluation of Olympic - Air threat, there is a sentence "The Okinawa experience was bad — almost two fatalities and a similar number wounded per sortie — and Kyūshū was likely to be worse". Fatalities on which side? Whose sorties? Could somebody who knows reword this? Regards Davidelit (talk) 12:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Allied casualties, from Japanese sorties. It wasn't clear from the context, which is all about the Japanese air threat to the Allied forces?

—WWoods (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Number of Japanese carriers available

The article says "By August 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had ceased to be an effective fighting force. The only Japanese major warships in fighting order were six aircraft carriers ..." Is there a cite for this? Wikipedia's own articles mention only five (of which four were damaged and therefore imho not in fighting order, and one used only for training). Ryuho says "on 1 April, Ryūhō was considered to be a total loss". Hosho says "relegated to training duty in Japan's Inland Sea after 1943". Junyo says "repairs were abandoned in March 1945". Katsuragi says "survived the war, albeit damaged". Kaiyo says "on 24 July 1945 ... the crew decided to ground the ship to prevent sinking". 159.169.242.3 (talk) 14:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The citation is after the following sentence, to Feifer, The Battle of Okinawa, p. 418.. Raul654 (talk) 14:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Should be removed, though - the IJN didn't have six combat-worthy carriers at this point, and the fate of each major warship was well-documented. Not sure what's going on with Feifer, but it's either a misprint or a tremendous gaffe. 20 Japanese carriers were either sunk or so badly damaged they were scuttled by their crews, the others were left inoperable after damage either in battle or attacked in port. Perhaps he was referring to carriers left unfinished in construction or training vessels. Additionally, the IJN did not have crews or pilots for six carriers at the end of the war, so they'd be pretty useless. http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/ijn_cv.htm gives an excellent summary of the Japanese carrier forces - can't use it as a RS, but the info is accurate. Upon looking at Feifer, while having a long bibliography, there is no footnote on where he obtained the information he claims for this quote. This book is also viewed as a social history more than a military one. Update-ok, I believe Feifer is just quoting Reynolds' 1968 book - which is generally good but I don't have access to it here - been a long time since I looked at it. Don't know how Reynolds came to that conclusion, considering the large amount of documentation on the IJN by Japanese sources and the U.S. Navy. Shrugs. HammerFilmFan (talk) 10:57, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the portion in the article about the six carriers as the source is contradicted by every other source I've read on the subject. Please don't re-add without discussion here. HammerFilmFan (talk) 12:13, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Btw, the only Japanese battleship not sunk, the Nagato, was too damaged from Leyte to be of any use, even if it could have been fueled. Strange the source(s) apparently don't recognize this. HammerFilmFan (talk) 12:49, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

References and external links

The external link "White, H.V., "The Japanese Plans for the Defense of Kyushu"; 31 December 1945." goes to a page that does not contain a PDF. Instead, it has an "Access Content" button that downloads a broken EXE. As far as I can tell, it is not a virus. I think I found the article elsewhere at [1]. Noghiri (talk) 23:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Problems with article

There are a number of problems with this article, which if remain unfixed would warrant a FAR: several page needed and citation needed tags, unsourced paragraphs, weak prose, heavy reliance on mostly just two sources, dead link on Silkett, could mention more the "intimidate-Soviets" aspect. PumpkinSky talk 01:56, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The article also isn't at all comprehensive, and doesn't reflect modern scholarship on this topic (especially Giangreco's book Hell to Pay, which is probably the best available book on this subject). I agree that a FAR is in order as this article clearly isn't of FA standard at present, and would need substantial amounts of work to retain the status. Nick-D (talk) 11:51, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree - substantial work would be needed. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Special references for this article - can I use them?

I have access to "Logistic Study for Projected Operations", ASF-P-SL-1 and - 2. Produced by the Planning Division, Office of Director of Plans and Operations, Army Service Forces * War Department. Dated 28 May 1945 per a memorandum in the front of the book. It details such things as the assumptions made in this plan, the nature of the operation and detailed information of men and materiel required. This is an unusual document not generally available. Can this be used as a source? Sccatech (talk) 22:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by "not generally available"? Is there a copy in the National Archives or some other public repository? If so, you can use it, so long as a researcher can in principle get access to a copy for verification. If not, I'd be concerned with being sure a copy gets into a public repository for historians to use, rather than putzing around on Wikipedia. $0.02. --Yaush (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Estimated casualties

The section seems to have only one estimate for Japanese casualties. Of course US estimators would be more interested in US casualties, but even so there could be more. jnestorius^(talk) 14:39, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Please add any others you're aware of Nick-D (talk) 22:29, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

There were really only reliable estimates for US casualties, and only for the first phase of the first operation (Olympic) at that. Barring mathematical exercises we have no definite picture of just how bloody Downfall would have been, but that millions would have died is a virtual certainty. By my own personal estimation Japanese military casualties would have been comparable to (or perhaps slightly lower than) American losses, though the percentage of killed would have been greater. Civilian casualties would have been enormous, probably similar to Okinawa in terms of a percentage of the population lost.

Sincerely, The Pittsburgher (talk) 21:19, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

[Hey, first time editing]About "Note 101": Barton J. Bernstein claims that there is no clear source, that proves the ordering of the Purple Hearts for the Invasion.

„No WorldWar II records or even early postwar records about such an order can be located anywhere. Possibly there was a 1945 purchase of Purple Hearts, but maybe not.“ - S. 233

Bernstein, Barton J., Reconsidering "Invasion Most Costly": Popular-History Scholarship, Publishing Standards, and the Claim of High U.S. Casualty Estimates to Help Legitimize the Atomic Bombings, in: Peace & Change 24 (2) (1999), S. 220-248. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.18.1.5 (talk) 11:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Bernstein (together with his mentor Gar Alperovitz) is a hack who shouldn't be considered a serious authority on the subject; according to Giangreco's exhaustive research on Downfall there were still some 495,000 surplus Purple Hearts left over at the end of World War II out of a total of 1,506,000 manufactured.

Sincerely, The Pittsburgher (talk) 16:46, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

There would have been no invasion

Closing discussion initiated by banned User:HarveyCarter.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The Allies would have just blockaded Japan, bombed the railways, firebombed the cities and starved everyone to death. (109.159.10.211 (talk) 22:05, 11 April 2016 (UTC)) King's opposition to proceeding with Downfall is mentioned in the article. This could be expanded, though, and Frank is a good source to start with. --Yaush (talk) 22:31, 11 April 2016 (UTC) Don't be so sure. The operation was already in the advanced planning stages and while the Navy was prepared to come out strongly against it there was no guarantee that would have resulted in its cancellation given the Army's support and the desire to put a concrete timetable on ending the war. Since it never happened we can't know for sure. Sincerely, The Pittsburgher (talk) 21:50, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Proposed chemical attack(s)

I've added a small bit about the consideration of chemical attacks against the Japanese and their food crops. It may need expansion per the judgement of other editors. Johnvr4 (talk) 16:35, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Casualties Section re-written

Hi all,

I'm in the process of completely re-writing the section on "estimated casualties," and at the time of this message have only covered expected American losses. The previous version was a complete train wreck and this is my attempt to clean it up into something resembling a coherent narrative. The Pittsburgher (talk) 05:06, 12 January 2024 (UTC)