Time to try them again..................


Sgatr15

too bad we didn't have more

Made in America, tested in Japan.

HOORAH!!!!

Godspeed to the crew of the Enola Gay.

Quoted: Godspeed to the crew of the Enola Gay.

Which plane dropped the second bomb?

Nice

Paybacks a bitch

FREE

I can't fathom the weight that those men beared....but I'm willing to learn

Somewhere around the house I've got a picture of Lance Corporal Peacher standing in front of the "A-bomb".  Circa April, 1987.

I'll see if I can find it and get it scanned.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Godspeed to the crew of the Enola Gay. Which plane dropped the second bomb? 'Bockscar', piloted by Major Charles Sweeney ANdy

They are always looked over, but they were as important. And probably had a riskier job.

My car is from Hiroshima.

If you look at the overall picture there's no doubt that the bomb saved more lives than it took.It obviousely saved us from having to invade,and the resulting hundreds of thousands casualtys.In addition I just finished a book that said in the spring of '46 there was a total failure of the rice harvest in Japan(weather ?).Without the Americans there to supply food there would have been massive starvation.There's no doubt Harry Truman made the right call.


If there had been no Pearl Harbour there would have been no Hiroshima.

MARIANAS ISLAND -- Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay" landing after the atomic bombing mission on Hiroshima, Japan. (U.S. Air Force photo)


Here's a picture of the bomb being loaded, it's in the pit to the left.

Quoted: Time to try them again.................. Sgatr15

I gotta agree....

The Enola Gay is a magnificent airplane to see in person. It's on display at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy center near Dulles Airport, near my home.  If you ever get to the DC area, it's worth the drive out to Dulles.

Whew! When I saw that first picture I thought this was going to be a Glock-KB bashing thread.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Godspeed to the crew of the Enola Gay. Which plane dropped the second bomb? 'Bockscar', piloted by Major Charles Sweeney ANdy

IIRC, it was "Bock's Car".

(I'm only correcting you 'cause you beat me to the punch!)

+Always appreciate your posts Andy.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Godspeed to the crew of the Enola Gay. Which plane dropped the second bomb? 'Bockscar', piloted by Major Charles Sweeney ANdy IIRC, it was "Bock's Car". (I'm only correcting you 'cause you beat me to the punch!) +Always appreciate your posts Andy.

You would be wrong.

Bockscar

Which comedian asked if it was ferterlizer we dropped on them, IE the booming Jap based products in America and abroad. He made a good point.


It was disgusting to see so many people on TV yesterday leading up to, "We are the only country inthe worl to ever use such a horrible device" or "Japan would have surrenderd with out using a nuclear bomb.."

No one I saw, mentioned the torture and murdering they were doing.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Godspeed to the crew of the Enola Gay. Which plane dropped the second bomb? 'Bockscar', piloted by Major Charles Sweeney ANdy IIRC, it was "Bock's Car". (I'm only correcting you 'cause you beat me to the punch!) +Always appreciate your posts Andy. You would be wrong. Bockscar www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/bock-1.jpg

Hmm....

That's embarrasing as hell.  

I will google before I post.
I will google before I post.
I will google before I post.

Thanks for the correction & apologies to you Andy.

Quoted: Quoted: too bad we didn't have more You did, another Fat Man bomb would have been ready for delivery by 21 August, the primary was Kokura IIRC. A total of 7 Fat Man bombs would have been available by end of October for use in the Invasion of Japan… ANdy

Good research, Andy!

Tokyo was next on the target list.  The Japanese troop concentrations on Kyushu would have soon followed, along with other large urban area.  The bomb production line at Hanford, WA was humming by that time.

Careful reading of the available papers now reveals that the Navy was just about to go to war with McArthur over Operation Downfall.  Nimitz recommended to King that the invasion be cancelled for reasons that should be obvious in light of the losses incurred at Okinawa.  Nimitz felt that the recent ongoing intense campaign of total destruction of the inter-island lines of communication had reduced the flow of  commodities and food stuffs to a trickle.  War production was nearly at a standstill and the population was about to starve and very likely collapse completely...something that the Emperor feared greatly and that new Ultra releases have revealed in detail.

Sorry for the hijack...but there were many more bombs about to be used on the enemy.

For the record...nukes saved Japan as a nation state.

They started it, we finished it. Seems they recovered quite well though.

Quoted: The Enola Gay is a magnificent airplane to see in person. It's on display at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy center near Dulles Airport, near my home.  If you ever get to the DC area, it's worth the drive out to Dulles.

Manufactured at the Martin Bomber plant Omaha, NE

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: too bad we didn't have more You did, another Fat Man bomb would have been ready for delivery by 21 August, the primary was Kokura IIRC. A total of 7 Fat Man bombs would have been available by end of October for use in the Invasion of Japan… ANdy Good research, Andy! Tokyo was next on the target list.  The Japanese troop concentrations on Kyushu would have soon followed, along with other large urban area.  The bomb production line at Hanford, WA was humming by that time. Careful reading of the available papers now reveals that the Navy was just about to go to war with McArthur over Operation Downfall.  Nimitz recommended to King that the invasion be cancelled for reasons that should be obvious in light of the losses incurred at Okinawa.  Nimitz felt that the recent ongoing intense campaign of total destruction of the inter-island lines of communication had reduced the flow of  commodities and food stuffs to a trickle.  War production was nearly at a standstill and the population was about to starve and very likely collapse completely...something that the Emperor feared greatly and that new Ultra releases have revealed in detail. Sorry for the hijack...but there were many more bombs about to be used on the enemy. For the record...nukes saved Japan as a nation state. Thanks LWilde! I've always been interested in the Bomb and it's use over Japan. As you say, the recently declassified material has been fascinating!  The US really was about to unleash a 'Rain of Ruin' on Japan that would have been absolutely mind boggling! And not only the 'bomb'!  The plans for all out Chemical Warfare were really awesome, 55,000 tons of Phosgene were to be dropped on 50 key urban and strategic locations from D-Day -15…the US Army report predicted 5 MILLION dead in those raids! Yep, to quote Adm Halsey, "Before we are through with them, the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell."… and it seems like the US really meant it. ANdy

Scary about the gas, huh?    True too...

Quoted: They started it, we finished it. Seems they recovered quite well though.

Mazda Miata plant is in Hiroshima.

 I think the Middle East needs a demonstration of exactly how nasty we can be.....and if I was Prez......


 I'd figure out a way...

Is it ever exactly?

Quoted: Scary ain't the word!!  If the book had not listed the US Archive documents the plans were contained in, I would have thought they were making it up!!! And not just the Phosgene!! they also it seems had huge stockiples of Mustard Gas and other nasties for tactical use and were geared up to poison the entire Japanese rice crop using Chem/Bio weapons in early 1946. I don't see as how a single Jap would have been left alive, they seemed to be planning to sterlize the entire Island! I have to hand it to the US, they really understood the concept of Total War. ANdy

What book is this that you are referring to?  I'd like to find get a copy.

Quoted: I have to hand it to the US, they really understood the concept of Total War. ANdy

There was incredible hatred for the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl by both the U.S. Military and the civilian population. I can still see my father pounding on the kitchen table fifty years after the attack. The bombing of Hiroshima with the first atomic bomb was in large part payback for Pearl Harbor. Make no mistake about it.  

Quoted: Which comedian asked if it was ferterlizer we dropped on them, IE the booming Jap based products in America and abroad. He made a good point. It was disgusting to see so many people on TV yesterday leading up to, "We are the only country inthe worl to ever use such a horrible device" or "Japan would have surrenderd with out using a nuclear bomb.." No one I saw, mentioned the torture and murdering they were doing.

Andrew Dice Clay I think said that.

Quoted: Quoted: Time to try them again.................. Sgatr15 I gotta agree....

Add my name to the list.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Scary ain't the word!!  If the book had not listed the US Archive documents the plans were contained in, I would have thought they were making it up!!! And not just the Phosgene!! they also it seems had huge stockiples of Mustard Gas and other nasties for tactical use and were geared up to poison the entire Japanese rice crop using Chem/Bio weapons in early 1946. I don't see as how a single Jap would have been left alive, they seemed to be planning to sterlize the entire Island! I have to hand it to the US, they really understood the concept of Total War. ANdy What book is this that you are referring to?  I'd like to find get a copy. 'Code-name downfall : the secret plan to invade Japan and why Truman dropped the bomb' By  Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar ANdy

Thanks

time to break out the canned sunshine in the ME

Quoted: I don't see as how a single Jap would have been left alive, they seemed to be planning to sterlize the entire Island!

Easy, we had 100,000 Japanese in camps right here on the mainland.


One of them is a great American who is the rangemaster at one of the ranges I shoot at. His stories are mindboggling.

Quoted: Time to try them again.................. Sgatr15

Mecca and Medina for starters

Quoted: Quoted: I have to hand it to the US, they really understood the concept of Total War. ANdy There was incredible hatred for the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl by both the U.S. Military and the civilian population. I can still see my father pounding on the kitchen table fifty years after the attack.

What a crying fucking shame we can't seem to muster that kind of hatred and rage today, after an attack upon our own soil and civilians which was even deadlier than Pearl.

We may have understood Total War 60 years ago, but we've bloody well forgotten it now.

I, too, would love to know what book this is. Sounds like one hell of a rivetting read!


ETA: Woops! Saw it above! Thanks!

Quoted: Quoted: Time to try them again.................. Sgatr15 Mecca and Medina for starters

Amen.

Quoted: Quoted: Godspeed to the crew of the Enola Gay. Which plane dropped the second bomb?

Bockscar.  Currently on display at the USAF Museum in Dayton,  OH.

Day late & a dollar short w/reply.  As usual.

Quoted: My car is from Hiroshima.

Have you ever did any baked potatoes in it yet?

Vito113, FYI..Bockscar never took flak over the primary, they couldn't see it because it was so cloudy and thats what they went to Nagasaki.  At least that is what the navigator from Bockscar said last night on the History Channel.  

Hey everyone, sorry if this is long but it's way worth reading.  It's about Operation Downfall and you will get goose bumps when reading it.  I can't imaine 22 Divisions landing over the course of a few hours!  Use this as an educational tool if you ever hear some liberal say that we were wrong for droping the bombs.

 Deep in the recesses of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., hidden for nearly four decades, lie thousands of pages of yellowing and dusty documents stamped “Top Secret”.  These documents, now declassified, are the plans for Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan during World War II. Only a few Americans in 1945 were aware of the elaborate plans that had been prepared for the Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands.  Even fewer today are aware of the defenses the Japanese had prepared to counter the invasion had it been launched.  Operation Downfall was finalized during the spring and summer of 1945.  It called for two massive military undertakings to be carried out in succession and aimed at the heart of the Japanese Empire.  In the first invasion - code named Operation Olympic - American combat troops would land on Japan by amphibious assault during the early morning hours of November 1, 1945.  Fourteen combat divisions of soldiers and Marines would land on heavily fortified and defended Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, after an unprecedented naval and aerial bombardment.  The second invasion - code named Operation Coronet - would send at least 22 combat divisions against 1 million Japanese defenders on the main island of Honshu and the Tokyo Plain.  Its goal: the unconditional surrender of Japan.  With the exception of the British Pacific Fleet, Operation Downfall was to be a strictly American operation.  It called for using the entire Marine Corps, the entire Pacific Navy, elements of the 7th Army Air Force, the 8th Air Force (recently deployed from Europe), the 10th Air Force, and the American Far Eastern Air Force.  More the 1.5 million combat soldiers, with 3 million more in support or more than 40 percent of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 - would be directly involved in the two amphibious assaults.  Casualties were expected to be extremely heavy.  

 Admiral William Leahy estimated that there would be more than 250,000 Americans killed or wounded on Kyushu alone.  General Charles Willoughby, chief of intelligence for General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific, estimated American casualties from the entire operation would be one million men by the fall of 1946.  Williughby’s own intelligence staff considered this to be a conservative estimate.

 During the summer of 1945, America had little time to prepare for such an endeavor, but top military leaders were in almost unanimous agreement that an invasion was necessary.

 While a naval blockade and strategic bombing of Japan was considered to be useful, MacArthur, for instance, did not believe a blockade would bring about an unconditional surrender.  The advocates for invasion agreed that while a naval blockade chokes, it does not kill; and though strategic bombing might destroy cities, it leaves whole armies intact.

 So on May 25, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after extensive deliberation, issued to MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Army Air Force General “Hap” Arnold, the top secret directive to proceed with the invasion of Kyushu.  The target date was set for after the typhoon season.

 President Truman approved the plans for the invasion July 24.  Two days later, the United Nations issued the Potsdam Proclamation, which called upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or face total destruction.  Three days later, the Japanese governmental news agency broadcast to the world that Japan would ignore the proclamation and would refuse to surrender.  During this same period it was learned - via monitoring Japanese radio broadccasts - that Japan had closed all schools and mobilized its schoolchildren, was arming its civilian population and was fortifying caves and building underground defenses.

 Operation Olympic called for a four pronged assault on Kyushu.  Its purpose was to seize and control the southern one-third of that island and establish naval and air bases, to tighten the naval blockade of the home islands, to destroy units of the main Japanese army and support the later invasion of the Tokyo Plain.

 The preliminary invasion would begin October 27 when the 40th Infantry Division would land on a series of small islands west and southwest of Kyushu.  At the same time, the 158th Regimental Combat Team would invade and occupy a small island 28 miles south of Kyushu.  On these islands, seaplanes bases would be established and radar would be set up to provide advance air warning for the invasion fleet, to serve as fighter direction centers for the carrier-based aircraft and to provide an emergency anchorage for the invasion fleet, should things not go well on the day of the invasion.  As the invasion grew imminent, the massive firepower of the Navy - the Third and Fifth Fleets - would approach Japan.  The Third Fleet, under Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, with its big guns and naval aircraft, would provide strategic support the operation against Honshu and Hokkaido.  Halsey’s fleet would be composed of battleships, heavy cruisers, destroyers, dozens of support ships and three fast carrier task groups.  From these carriers, hundreds of Navy fighters, dive bombers and torpedo planes would hit targets all over the island of Honshu.  The 3,000 ship fleet, under Admiral Raymond Spruance, would carry the invasion troops.

 Several days before the invasion, the battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers would pour thousands of tons of high explosives into the target areas.  They would not cease the bombardment until after the landing forces had been launched.  During the early morning hours of November 1 the invasion would begin.  Thousands of soldiers and Marines would pour ashore on beaches all along the eastern, southeastern, southern and western coasts of Kyushu.  Waves of Helldivers, Dauntless dive bombers, Avengers, Corsairs, and Hellcats from 66 aircraft carriers would bomb, rocket and strafe enemy defenses, gun emplacements and troop concentrations along the beaches.

 The Eastern Assault Force, consisting of the 25th, 33rd and 41st Infantry Divisions, would land near Miyasaki, at beaches called Austin, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, and Ford and move inland to attempt to capture the city and its nearby airfield.  The Southern Force, consisting of the 1st Cavalry Division and Americal Division would land inside Ariake Bay at beaches labeled Desoto, Dusenberg, Essex, Ford, and Franklin and attempt to capture Shibushi and to capture the city of Kanoya and its airfield.

 On the western shore of Kyushu, at beaches Pontiac, Reo, Rolls Royce, Saxon, Star, Studebaker, Stutz, Winton, and Zephyr, the V Amphibious Corps would land the 2nd, 3rd and 5th Marine Divisions, sending half of its force inland to Sendai and the other half to the port city of Kagoshima.

 On November 4, the reserve force, consisting of the 81st and 98th Infantry Divisions and the 11th Airborne Division, after feigning an attack off the island of Shikoku, would be landed - if not needed elsewhere - near Kaimondake, near the southernmost tip of Kagoshima Bay, at beaches designated Locomobile, Lincoln, LaSalle, Hupmobile, Moon, Mercedes, Maxwell, Overland, Oldsmobile, Packard and Plymouth.

 Olympic was not just a plan for invasion, but for conquest and occupation as well.  It was expected to take four months to achieve its objective, with three fresh American divisions per month to be landed in support of that operation if needed.

 If all went well with Olympic, Coronet would be launched March 1, 1946.  Coronet would be twice the size of Olympic, with as many as 28 American divisions landing on Honshu.

 All along the coast east of Tokyo, the American 1st Army would land the 5th, 7th, 27th, 44th, 86th, and 96th Infantry Divisions along with the 4th and 6th Marine Divisions.

 At Sagami Bay, just south of Tokyo, the entire 8th and 10th Armies would strike north and east and attempt to go as far as Yokohama.  The assault troops landing south of Tokyo would be the 4th, 6th, 8th, 24th, 31st, 32nd, 37th, 38th, and 87th Infantry Divisions, along with the 13th and 20th Armored Divisions.

 Following the initial assault, eight more divisions - the 2nd, 28th, 35th, 91st, 95th, 97th, and 104th Infantry Divisions and the 11th Airborne Division - would be landed.  If additional troops were needed, as expected, other divisions redeployed from Europe and undergoing training in the United States would be shipped to Japan in what was hoped to be the final push.

 Captured Japanese documents and post war interrogation of Japanese military leaders disclose that information concerning the number of Japanese planes available for the defense of the home islands was dangerously in error.

 During the sea battle at Okinawa alone, Japanese kamikaze aircraft sank 32 Allied ships and damaged more than 400 others.  But during the summer of 1945, American top brass concluded that the Japanese had spent their air force since American bombers and fighters daily flew unmolested over Japan.

 What the military leaders did not know was that by the end of July the Japanese had been saving all aircraft, fuel and pilots in reserve, and had been feverishly building new planes for the decisive battle for their homeland.

 As part of Ketsu-Go, the name for the plan to defend Japan, the Japanese were building 20 suicide takeoff strips in southern Kyushu with underground hangers.  They also had 35 camouflaged airfields and nine seaplane bases.

 On the night before the expected invasion, 50 Japanese seaplane bombers, 100 former carrier aircraft and 50 land-based army planes were to be launched in a suicide attack on the fleet.

 The Japanese had 58 more airfields on Korea, western Honshu and Shikoku, which also were to be used for massive suicide attacks.

 Allied intelligence had established that the Japanese had no more that 2,500 aircraft of which they guessed that 300 would be deployed in suicide attacks.

 In August 1945, however, unknown to Allied intelligence, the Japanese still had 5,651 army and 7,074 navy aircraft, for a total of 12,725 planes of all types.  Every village had some type of aircraft manufacturing activity.  Hidden in mines, railway tunnels, under viaducts and in basements of department stores, work was being done to construct new planes.

 Additionally, the Japanese were building newer and more effective models of the Okka - a rocket-propelled bomb much like the German V-1, but flown by a suicide pilot.

 When the invasion became imminent, Ketsu-Go called for a fourfold aerial plan of attack to destroy up to 800 Allied ships.

 While Allied ships were approaching Japan, but still in the open seas, an initial force of 2,000 army and navy fighters were to fight to the death to control the skies over Kyushu.  A second force of 330 navy combat pilots were to attack the main body of the task force to keep it from using its fire support and air cover to protect the troop carrying transports.  While these two forces were engaged, a third force of 825 suicide planes was to hit the American transports.

 As the invasion convoys approached their anchorages, another 2,000 suicide planes were to be launched in waves of 200 to 300, to be used in hour-by-hour attacks.

 By mid-morning of the first day of the invasion, most of the American land-based aircraft would be forced to return to their bases, leaving the defense against the suicide planes to the carrier pilots and the shipboard gunners.

 Carrier pilots crippled by fatigue would have to land time and time again to rearm and refuel.  Guns would malfunction from the heat of continuos firing and ammunition would become scarce.  Gun crews would be exhausted by nightfall, but still the waves of kamikazes would continue.  With the fleet hovering off the beaches, all remaining Japanese aircraft would be committed to nonstop suicide attacks, which the Japanese hoped could be sustained for 10 days.  The Japanese planned to coordinate their air strikes with attacks from the 40 remaining submarines from the Imperial Navy - some armed with Long Lance torpedoes with a range of 20 miles - when the invasion fleet was 180 miles off Kyushu.

 The Imperial Navy had 23 destroyers and 2 cruisers which were operational.  These ships were to be used to counterattack the American invasion.  A number of the destroyers were to be beached at the last minute to be used as anti-invasion gun platforms.

 Once offshore, the invasion fleet would be forced to defend not only against the attacks from the air, but would also be confronted with suicide attacks from the sea.  Japan had established a suicide naval attack unit of midget submarines, human torpedoes and exploding motorboats.

 The goal of the Japanese was to shatter the invasion before the landing.  The Japanese were convinced the Americans would back off  or become so demoralized that they would then accept a less-than-unconditional surrender and a more honorable and face-saving end for the Japanese.

 But as horrible as the battle of Japan would be off the beaches, it would be on Japanese soil that the American forces would face the most rugged and fanatical defense encountered during the war.

 Throughout the island-hopping Pacific campaign, Allied troops had always out numbered the Japanese 2 to 1 and sometimes 3 to 1.

 In Japan it would be different.  By virtue of a combination of cunning, guesswork, and brilliant military reasoning, a number of Japan’s top military leaders were able to deduce, not only when, but where, the United States would land its first invasion force.

 Facing the 14 American divisions landing at Kyushu would be 14 Japanese divisions, 7 independent mixed brigades, 3 tank brigades and thousands of naval troops.  On Kyushu the odds would be 3 to 2 in favor of the Japanese, with 790,000 enemy defenders against 550,000 Americans.  This time the bulk of the Japanese defenders would not be the poorly trained and ill-equipped labor battalions that the Americans had faced in the earlier campaigns.

 The Japanese defenders would be the hard-core of the home army.  These troops were well-fed and well equipped.  They were familiar with the terrain, had stockpiles of arms and ammunition, and had developed an effective system of transportation and supply almost invisible from the air.  Many of these Japanese troops were the elite of the army, and they were swollen with a fanatical fighting spirit.

 Japan’s network of beach defenses consisted of offshore mines, thousands of suicide scuba divers attacking landing craft, and mines planted on the beaches.

 Coming ashore, the American Eastern amphibious assault forces at Miyazaki would face three Japanese divisions, and two others poised for counterattack.

 Awaiting the Southeastern attack force at Ariake Bay was an entire division and at least one mixed infantry brigade.

 On the western shores of Kyushu, the Marines would face the most brutal opposition.  Along the invasion beaches would be the three Japanese divisions, a tank brigade, a mixed infantry brigade and an artillery command.  Components of two divisions would also be poised to launch counterattacks.

 If not needed to reinforce the primary landing beaches, the American Reserve Force would be landed at the base of Kagoshima Bay November 4, where they would be confronted by two mixed infantry brigades, parts of two infantry divisions and thousands of the naval troops.

 All along the invasion beaches, American troops would face coastal batteries, anti-landing obstacles and a network of heavily fortified pillboxes, bunkers, and underground fortresses.

 As Americans waded ashore, they would face intense artillery and mortar fire as they worked their way through concrete rubble and barbed-wire entanglements arranged to funnel them into the muzzle of these Japanese guns.

 On the beaches and beyond would be hundreds of Japanese machine gun positions, beach mines, booby traps, trip-wire mines and sniper units.  Suicide units concealed in “spider holes” would engage the troops as they passed nearby.

 In the heat of battle, Japanese infiltration units would be sent to reap havoc in the American lines by cutting phone and communication lines.  Some of the Japanese troops would be in American uniform, English-speaking Japanese officers were assigned to break in on American radio traffic to call off artillery fire, to order retreats and to further confuse troops.

 Other infiltrators with demolition charges strapped on their chests or backs would attempt to blow up American tanks, artillery pieces and ammunition stores as they were unloaded ashore.

 Beyond the beaches were large artillery pieces situated to bring down a curtain of fire on the beach.  Some of these large guns were mounted on railroad tracks running in and out of caves protected by concrete and steel.

 The battle for Japan would be won by what Simon Bolivar Buckner, a lieutenant general in the Confederate army during the Civil War, had called “Prairie Dog Warfare.”  This type of fighting was almost unknown to the ground troops in Europe and the Mediterranean.  It was peculiar only to the soldiers and Marines who fought the Japanese on islands all over the Pacific - at Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

 Prairie Dog Warfare was a battle for yards, feet and sometimes inches.  It was a brutal, deadly and dangerous form of combat aimed at an underground, heavily fortified, non-retreating enemy.

 In the mountains behind the Japanese beaches were underground networks of caves, bunkers, command posts and hospitals connected by miles of tunnels with dozens of entrances and exits.  Some of these complexes could hold up to 1,000 troops.

 In addition to the use of poison gas and bacteriological warfare (which the Japanese had experimented with), Japan mobilized its citizenry.

 Had Olympic come about, the Japanese civilian population, inflamed by a national slogan - One Hundred Million Will Die for the Emperor and Nation - was prepared to fight to the death.

 Twenty-eight million Japanese had become a part of the National Volunteer Combat Force.  They were armed with ancient rifles, lunge mines, satchel charges, Molotov cocktails and one-shot black powder mortars.  Others were armed with swords, long bows, axes and bamboo spears.

 The civilian units were to be used in nighttime attacks, hit and run maneuvers, delaying actions and massive suicide charges at the weaker American positions.

 At the early stage of the invasion, 1,000 Japanese and American soldiers would be dying every hour.

 The invasion of Japan never became a reality because on August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima.  Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.  Within days, the war with Japan was at a close.

 Had these bombs not been dropped and had the invasion been launched as scheduled, combat casualties in Japan would have been at a minimum in the tens of thousands.  Every foot of Japanese soil would have been paid for by Japanese and American lives.

 One can only guess at how many civilians would have committed suicide in their homes or in futile mass military attacks.

 In retrospect, the 1 million American men who where to be casualties of the invasion, were instead lucky enough to survive the war.

 Intelligence studies and military estimates made 50 years ago, and not latter-day speculation, clearly indicate that the battle for Japan might well have resulted in the biggest bloodbath in the history of modern warfare.

 Far worse would be what might have happened to Japan as a nation and as a culture.  When the invasion came, it would have come after several months of fire bombing all of the remaining Japanese cities.  The cost in human life that resulted from the two atomic blasts would be small in comparison to the total number of Japanese lives that would have been lost by this aerial devastation.

 With American forces locked in combat in the south of Japan, little could have prevented the Soviet Union from marching into the northern half of the Japanese home islands.  Japan today could be divided much like Korea and Germany.

 The world was spared the cost of Operation Downfall, however, because Japan formally surrendered to the United Nations September 2, 1945, and World War II was over.

 The aircraft carriers, cruisers and transport ships scheduled to carry the invasion troops to Japan, ferried home American troops in a gigantic operation called Magic Carpet.

 In the fall of 1945, in the aftermath of the war, few people concerned themselves with the invasion plans.  Following the surrender, the classified documents, maps, diagrams and appendices for Operation Downfall were packed away in boxes and eventually stored at the National Archives.  These plans that called for invasion of Japan paint a vivid description of what might have been on of the most horrible campaigns in the history of man.  The fact the story of the invasion of Japan is locked up in the National Archives and is not told in our history books is something for which all Americans can be thankful.
 

Quoted: My car is from Hiroshima.

Hmm, you just gave me a heck of an idea!  Let's Nuke the Middle East.  That'll cause them to manufacture cars instead of suicide bombers.  You didn't see Kamikazes after the Japs got nuked, but you sure got a lot of reliable cars afterwards!