User:The Pittsburgher/sandbox

User:The Pittsburgher/The Pittsburgher/Sandbox2 User:The Pittsburgher/sandbox2 - Even with Lyushkov, Japanese intelligence efforts were hodgepodge (Coox "semiprofessionals" terrain map)

- Only Third Army and other units in the vicinity had developed OPLAN

- AH "Soviet Intelligence on the Japanese Threat" (5 units)

- Include Soviet intelligence and map with Japanese attack plan
 * Japanese and U.S. Intelligence data on the strength of Soviet Army Forces east of Lake Baikal

Weapons of mass destruction
Since the mid-1930s, Japan invested large resources toward the creation and development of a tremendous arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. During the campaign in China, the Japanese military routinely subjected opposing population centers to ruthless attacks by these weapons of mass-destruction, resulting in the deaths of as many as 2,000,000 people. One of these targets, the helpless city of Baoshan, was hit by a mixture of high-explosive and bacteriological weapons in 1942. Clogged with refugees fleeing the front and with grossly inadequate medical infrastructure, up to 60,000 people died in the city and its environs.

Russian historian Anatoliy Koshkin claims that Japan's conduct in a war against the Soviet Union would have been little different, contending that the IJA's Unit 731, Unit 100, and Unit 516 began making extensive preparations after the introduction of the Kantokuen plan for war in Siberia.

Koshkin asserts that "epizootic detachments" consisting of specialists from Unit 100 were set up at each corps-level headquarters in Manchuria to increase the Kwantung Army's readiness for biological warfare; this being carried out n the initiative of the IJA General Staff 1st Operations Division. Three primary media for spreading disease were identified: direct spraying from aircraft, bacteria bombs, and saboteurs on the ground. Koshkin writes that in the event of war with the USSR, the Japanese planned to make use of all three, spreading plague, cholera, typhus, anthrax, and other diseases on both the opposing front lines and rear areas with the goal of infecting populated regions, livestock, crops, and water supplies. He identifies the main targets as the areas around Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk, Voroshilov, and Chita, and asserts that extensive reconnaissance of the border region was conducted in 1942 while detailed maps were created indicating targets of opportunity for biological warfare.

Koshkin maintains that the Kwantung Army regarded its weapons of mass-destruction as trump cards against the Soviets which would guarantee a Japanese victory, citing a Colonel Asaoka of Unit 731. As late as 1945, their supply was so great that even the output of that unit alone was deemed sufficient to supply the entire Japanese Army; evenly distributed and under ideal conditions, it was claimed, the Japanese bioweapon stockpile was capable of destroying all of humanity.

Plans for occupation
By Imperial decree on October 1, 1940, the Total War Research Institute was established under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister. Working closely with the Research Society for the Study of State Policy (an organization that included many high-ranking Japanese government ministers and industrialists), its main goal was to create policies for the formation and rule over the planned "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," which was to be the 'New Order' in the region. Under the provisions of the Administrative Plan of December 1941, the Primorye Region would be directly annexed into the Empire and the remaining territories adjacent to Manchukuo would be subject to the latter's influence. The hypothetical delineation point between German and Japanese spheres of influence over the prostrate Soviet Union was designated as the city of Omsk.

The occupation was to be managed with extraordinary brutality, typical of Japanese conduct in China and elsewhere during the war. In general, it envisioned the displacement of the native population to make room for a projected influx of Japanese, Korean, and Manchu settlers. Given instructions to use "strictly real force, without sinking to the so-called principle of moderation," the Japanese Army authorities were to annihilate the subject Soviet population with the survivors either converted into forced labor to exploit the raw materials of the region or exiled into the frozen wastelands of the north. All pre-existing institutions were to be completely abolished and the Communist ideology outlawed and replaced with Japanese propaganda. To create, if possible, a façade of self-governance, a number of former White Movement figures (including Grigory Semyonov) were hand-picked to manage puppet government positions under the Japanese.

The task of setting up the framework of the occupation regime was given to the "Hata Department," later the 5th Department of the Kwantung Army.

Operation Downfall
Due to the nature of combat in the Pacific Theater and the character of the Japanese Armed Forces, it was always envisioned that a direct invasion of the Japanese Home Islands would be a very difficult and costly battle.

- Saipan Ratio (JCS 924, "Operations against Japan subsequent to Formosa"). 30 August 1944 - the Japanese could theoretically make available 3.5 million soldiers to defend their Homeland. "On this basis [the casualty experience of the Battle of Saipan] it might cost us half a million American lives and many times that number wounded [...] in the Home Islands." (Giangreco p. 50). This number appeared, "in the long run, to be unrealistically high to a cross-section of strategic planners and senior leaders in Washington. After all, it seemed reasonable to assume that US forces would learn how to better cope with Japanese defensive techniques through heard-earned battle experience."

- In the spring of 1945 a figure of 500,000 battle casualties for an invasion of Japan was repeatedly used in briefing documents and became "the operative one at the working level." (Giangreco p. 53)

- 15 January 1945 ASF estimate (below)

- 17 January 1945, "The Army must provide 600,000 replacements for overseas theaters before June 30, and, together with the Navy, will require a total of 900,000 inductions by June 30. The Navy total includes those required for 'manning the rapidly expanding fleet' rather than casualty replacement. (Giangreco p. 19, 53)

- Lt. Gen. Somervell, "approximately" 720,000 replacements needed for "dead and evacuated wounded" through 31 December 1946. (Giangreco p. 53) (Summary of Redeployment Forecast, 14 March 1945)

- 15 May 1945, former president Herbert Hoover submitted a memorandum to Henry Stimson that defeating the Japanese could cost "500,000 to 1,000,000 lives." (Giangreco p. 55) Hoover was plugged into sensitive military information via the "cabal of smart colonels."

- Kyle Palmer, Los Angeles Times (attached to Admiral Nimitz's HQ as a war correspondent) - "Palmer Warns No Easy Way Open to Bear Japs" (17 May 1945). "They have 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 under arms and it will cost 500,000 to 750,000, perhaps 1,000,000 lives of American boys to end this war." (Giangreco p. 16). "This information was not yet widely disseminated even within higher headquarters' organizations, and almost certainly was leaked to Palmer through Nimitz's command which, like the rest of the Navy leadership, was still angling, sometimes buttressed by selective leaks to the press, to swing future operations away from a direct assault on Japan's Home Islands to a campaign of encirclement and blockade designed to starve the Japanese into surrender." (Giangreco p. 56)

- On 28 May 1945 Presidents Hoover and Truman met at the White House; at Truman's request Hoover prepared four memoranda on the issues discussed (1. The European Food Organization; 2. The Domestic Food Organization; 3. The Creation of a War Economic Council; and 4. The Japanese Situation - in which Hoover repeated his figures of up to 1 million American deaths.) In response, Truman sent memoranda to Stimson, Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew, Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion Fred Vinson, and former Secretary of State Cordell Hull asking for written judgements from each. Truman additionally wished to discuss the analyses of Grew and Stimson in person. (Giangreco pp. 56-57)

- On 18 June 1945 President Truman convened a meeting with the JCS as well as Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal. "All participants agreed that the invasion would be bloody but that it was essential for the defeat of Japan." (Giangreco p. 58) To support this meeting the Joint War Plans Committee (JWPC) hastily assembled an estimate of casualties that could be expected in an invasion of Japan, based on the experience of the Battle of Leyte. (Giangreco, "Casualty Projections for the Invasion of Japan" p. 13) This estimate was deleted from a subsequent version of the document and not presented to the President.(MacEachin pp. 14-15) The meeting concluded with Truman expressing hope of avoiding "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other." (Giangreco p. 60)

General Marshall's deputy Chief of Staff, Major General Thomas T. Handy, wrote that Hoover's estimate of 500,000 lives was "entirely too high [...] under the present plan of campaign " (emphasis original). General George A. Lincoln, chief of the OPD's Strategy and Policy Group, echoed Handy's response and went back to Truman with notes from Stimson that nevertheless affirmed that an invasion of Japan would be difficult and cost "a large number of lives." (Giangreco, "Casualty Projections for the Invasion of Japan" p. 12)

- During the first week of August 1945 approximately 50 reporters from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia were given an "off the record" briefing at General MacArthur's headquarters in Manila, stating that final operations against Japan could result in up to 1 million American casualties. (Giangreco p. 106)

- "Size of the Army" 7 August 1945. Memorandum. Further broken down in 10 August memorandum to Admiral Leahy in which 330,000 of these men would be hospitalized troops in the CONUS. Army Medical Corps previously estimated that casualties incurred by summer 1945 would continue to occupy about 55,000 beds (5,000 from noncombat theaters) in CONUS - the implication being that final operations against Japan would produce around 275,000 patients serious enough to require hospitalization in the United States through Operation Olympic and the opening part of Coronet. This figure omits dead and missing, patients in other branches, patients discharged and sent back to their units, or patients in forward hospitals in Hawai'i, the Philippines, and Australia (~150,000 beds - Giangreco p. 138, including 33,250 to be established on Kyushu). (Giangreco p. 317) A common rule of thumb for planning purposes is that the number of beds available should exceed the number of anticipated patients by a minimum of 125%. (Giangreco, "Casualty Projections for the Invasion of Japan" p. 15)

- Writing in "Military Review: June 1946" No. 3, MacArthur's intelligence chief, Major General Charles A. Willoughby stated that based on the experience of Okinawa "two to two and a half Japanese divisions exacted a total of 40,000 American battle casualties on land." Using this formula and conservatively rounding down Willoughby concluded that excluding "the shattering kamikaze attack" American forces could expect to incur 200,000 battle casualties on Kyushu and 400,000 on the Kanto Plain, with an additional 80,000 at Shikoku and 30,000 at Sendai should those locations have also been attacked. Willoughby considered this "a completely authentic yardstick to forecast what it would have taken in losses had we gone in shooting." Japanese naval ground forces as well as Army reinforcements are not included in his estimate.

- Independent of Army planning, Stimson advisor Dr. Edward Bowles commissioned Dr. William B. Shockley to examine the question of potential casualties to defeat Japan. Shockley and his team were given access to classified data collected by the Military Intelligence Division and Medical Corps; Shockley concluded on 21 July 1945 that "If the study shows that the behavior of nations in all historical cases comparable to Japan's has in fact been invariably consistent with the behavior of the troops in battle, then it means that the Japanese dead and ineffectives at the time of the defeat will exceed the corresponding number for the Germans. In other words, we shall probably have to kill at least 5 to 10 million Japanese. This might cost us between 1.7 and 4 million casualties including [between] 400,000 and 800,000 killed." The war ended before Shockley's document, "Proposal for Increasing the Scope of Casualties Studies," could be considered in detail. (Giangreco p. 92)

Relatively high casualties for Q3 1945 can be explained by the need to prepare for operations on the China Coast and the more protracted campaign envisioned for the Ryukyus subsequent to Okinawa. (History of Planning Division, ASF. vol. 1, part 5, pp. 176-177)

Additionally, the possibility of US troops participating in invasion of the Dutch East Indies was also discussed at the end of 1944 and beginning of 1945 when this paper was written. (ASF vol. 4, part 3, p. 171)

Finally, lag between the end of the last quarter and the start of the next.

Due to the nature of combat in the Pacific Theater and the characteristics of the Japanese Armed Forces, it was accepted that a direct invasion of the Japanese Home Islands would be a very difficult and costly battle. The Allies would have to contend with not only all available Japanese military forces that could be brought to bear, but also the efforts of a "fanatically hostile population." Depending on the scope and context, casualty estimates for American forces ranged from 220,000 to several million, while estimates of Japanese military and civilian casualties ran from the millions to the tens of millions. Postwar, the extent of the expected loss of life played a key role in debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the aftermath of the Marianas Campaign the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) revised their planning document, "Operations against Japan subsequent to Formosa" (JCS 924) to reflect the experience gained. Taking into account the stiff resistance of the Japanese 31st Army at Saipan, they concluded that, should U.S. forces have to defeat all 3.5 million Japanese soldiers that could be made available, "it might cost us half a million American lives and many times that number wounded." Despite these high numbers, by the spring of 1945 a figure of 500,000 battle casualties for the projected invasion was widely used in briefings, while totals of closer to a million were used for actual planning purposes. U.S. strategists hoped that by seizing a few vital strategic areas they could establish "effective military control" over Japan without the need to clear the entire archipelago or defeat the Japanese on mainland Asia, thereby avoiding excessive losses.

Covering only the U.S. Army, the Army Service Forces (ASF) planning document of 15 January 1945, "Redeployment of the United States Army after the Defeat of Germany," expected that an average of 43,000 replacements for "dead and evacuated wounded" would be needed each month between June 1945 and December 1946 to carry out the final phase of the war against Japan. Expected casualties, independent of Navy and Marine Corps losses, came to approximately 723,000 through the end of 1946 and 863,000 through the first part of 1947. Two days later, letters from President Roosevelt, General Marshall, and Admiral King to House Military Affairs Committee chairman Andrew J. May were released to the New York Times, which published articles informing the public that "the Army must provide 600,000 replacements for overseas theaters before June 30, and, together with the Navy, will require a total of 900,000 inductions by June 30." Of the Navy's target of 300,000, a large proportion were required for "manning the rapidly expanding fleet" rather than replacing battle casualties.

Acting on the basis of sensitive information provided to him by contacts in the military, former President Herbert Hoover, a close personal friend of incoming President Harry S. Truman (who assumed office after Roosevelt's death in April) submitted a memorandum on 15 May 1945 to Secretary of War Henry Stimson indicating that defeating Japan could cost 500,000 to 1 million American dead. The same week, Kyle Palmer, Los Angeles Times war correspondent at Admiral Nimitz's headquarters, warned that "it will cost 500,000 to 750,000, perhaps 1,000,000 lives of American boys to end this war." These numbers were given in the context of revised estimates of Japanese military strength, still classified, which indicated that the IJA had the potential to mobilize 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 soldiers rather than the 3.5 million assessed by JCS 924.

On 28 May Hoover and Truman met at the White House and conversed for several hours. At Truman's request Hoover prepared four memoranda on the issues discussed (1. The European Food Organization, 2. The Domestic Food Organization, 3. The Creation of a War Economic Council, and 4. The Japanese Situation - in which Hoover twice repeated his figure of 500,000 to 1 million American deaths). Truman "seized" on memo 4 and asked for written judgements on it from Stimson, Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew, Director of the Office of Mobilization and Reconversion Fred Vinson, and former Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Truman was particularly interested in hearing from Grew and Stimson and asked to meet with them in person.

While neither Hull nor Grew took explicit exception to Hoover's estimate, Stimson forwarded his copy of Hoover's "Memo 4" to Marshall's deputy Chief of Staff, General Thomas T. Handy. As with the "worst case" scenario from JCS 924, Handy wrote that " under our present plan of campaign " (emphasis original), "the estimated loss of 500,000 lives due to carrying the war to conclusion [...] is considered to be entirely too high." Both Marshall and General George A. Lincoln, chief of the Operations Division (OPD), agreed with Handy's remarks. Nonetheless, it was emphasized that an invasion would cost "a lot of lives."

Appalled at the prospect of an impending bloodbath, President Truman ordered a meeting to be convened on 18 June 1945 involving the JCS as well as Stimson and Forrestal; at stake was the decision to either press forward with Downfall or to opt for the Navy's long-standing proposal of blockade and bombardment. To support this meeting the Joint War Plans Committee (JWPC) hastily assembled a table illustrating the casualties that could be expected in an invasion of Japan, based on the experience of the Battle of Leyte. This estimate, which was significantly lower than those which had been prepared in the past, was deleted from a subsequent version of the document and not shown to the President. The meeting concluded with all participants agreeing that the invasion would be 'bloody but essential for victory.' Truman expressed hope of avoiding "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other." Throughout the summer, as the intelligence picture concerning Japanese Army strength in the Home Islands became more and more unfavorable, together with new data from the fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, casualty predictions were continually revised upward. During the first week of August 1945 approximately 50 reporters from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia were given an "off the record" briefing at General MacArthur's headquarters in Manila, where they were informed that final operations against Japan could result in up to 1 million American casualties. An internal memorandum from Marshall to Leahy implied that by 30 June 1946 there would be approximately 275,000 Army soldiers in serious enough condition to require hospitalization in the United States, exclusive of dead and missing, the losses of other branches, patients discharged and sent back to their units, or patients in forward hospitals in Hawai'i, the Philippines, Australia, Kyushu, and elsewhere. The number of beds in these forward hospitals was planned to total roughly 150,000, a general rule of thumb being that available beds should exceed expected casualties (excluding deaths) by 20%. By war's end nearly half a million Purple Heart medals were on hand with more being produced in anticipation of the invasion; by 2003 there were still some 120,000 of this stockpile left.

Based on the experience of Okinawa MacArthur's intelligence chief, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, concluded that "[destroying] two to two and a half Japanese divisions [exacts] a total of 40,000 American battle casualties on land." Writing in "Military Review: June 1946" No. 3, Willoughby used this "sinister ratio" to claim that U.S. forces could have expected over 700,000 casualties at four key locations in mainland Japan. Willoughby's estimate excluded losses from "the shattering kamikaze attack," combat against Naval ground forces personnel and militia, and any reinforcements the Japanese might have been able to bring in to the battle areas. Willoughby regarded this as "a completely authentic yardstick to forecast what it would have taken in losses had we gone in shooting." In addition to battle casualties, hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war and civilian internees were also scheduled to be murdered by the Japanese. Beginning in the summer of 1944 Japanese leaders issued a series of directives to prison camp commandants that all prisoners were to be "liquidated" when Allied troops approach the camps. The objective was to prevent prisoners from rioting or being utilized as a fighting force after being freed, and camp commandants were given flexibility as to how this "liquidation" would be accomplished. The main emphasis was to 'annihilate all captives, not allowing a single one to escape,' and that 'no trace' should be left of their existence of the existence of the prison camps. At the end of the war many POWs were in the process of digging their own graves in preparation for their deaths.

Historically, these orders led to the massacre of POWs on several occasions, including on Palawan Island, where men were burned alive in their barracks, shot, or stabbed while guards took delight in their fate. The Palawan Massacre prompted American forces to organize daring rescue missions to quickly free nearby prisoners before they too could be executed, such as the "Great Raid" on Cabanatuan. On 20 August 1945 the Japanese government secretly distributed an order formally authorizing guards and other perpetrators to flee in order to escape punishment for their crimes.

Japanese Casualties
Throughout the Pacific War the Japanese Armed Forces earned a reputation of fighting practically to the last man. By the early summer of 1945 there had not been one instance of an organized surrender by any Japanese unit, even under the most hopeless conditions. The Japanese suffered especially from starvation and disease: according to historian Akira Fujiwara, out of 2.3 million military deaths between 1937 and 1945, 1.4 million (61%) were attributable to these causes. A further 358,000 (15.5%) died from drowning as a result of the American air and submarine campaign against Japanese shipping. During the reconquest of the Philippines as many as 80% of Japanese deaths were from starvation and disease, while the proportion in New Guinea may have reached 97%. Even in battles where starvation was not as great of a factor, Japanese losses were skewed higher because their garrisons were totally isolated and had no means of resupply or evacuation. Former Ensign Kiyoshi Endo, an Iwo Jima survivor, later recalled: "The number of deaths on the Japanese side was much larger, because the Americans rescued and treated their injured. Japanese soldiers who were injured could have survived if they were rescued, but that was not possible, so they all died."

In contrast to previous campaigns, Admiral King pointed out that the Japanese Army in the Home Islands would have several advantages that its overseas counterparts did not. It would have more "room to maneuver, and would not be so vulnerable to the overpowering air and naval power which the Allies had been able to bring to bear [...] on small and isolated islands." It would also be near to its bases of supply and reinforcement, and have the support of a friendly population. For these reasons Admiral King was cautious about using casualty rates from previous battles to predict the course of fighting in Japan.

Under the Ketsu-Go plan, all divisions assigned to coastal defense were ordered to stand and fight "even to utter annihilation," while heavy counter attacks by reserves aimed to force a decisive battle near the beachheads. Should this have failed, the surviving mobile elements would have retreated to strongholds around Mt. Aso on Kyushu and in Nagano Prefecture on Honshu for protracted resistance. Given their chosen tactics, American military historian Richard B. Frank concluded that "it is hard to imagine that fewer than [40 to 50%]" of Japanese soldiers and sailors in the invasion areas "would have fallen by the end of the campaign."

In addition to military losses, civilian casualties incurred both as a direct result of military action as well as indirectly from other causes were expected to be high. Between 10 and 25% of the civilian population of Okinawa died as a result of the battle there. A worst-case scenario published on 21 July 1945 by physicist William B. Shockley concluded that "at least" 5 to 10 million Japanese - military and civilians - could die, with a corresponding American casualty total of up to 4 million. The war ended before this document, "Proposal for Increasing the Scope of Casualties Studies," could be considered in detail. Army Service Forces planners assessed that approximately one-third of Japanese civilians within the invasion areas on Kyushu and Honshu would flee as refugees or die, leaving the remainder (including wounded and sick) to be cared for by the occupation authorities.

Japanese leaders regarded Ketsu-Go as apocalyptic battle in which they would either succeed or be destroyed as a nation. Propagandists frequently repeated the slogan that 'all 100 million people of the Empire should be prepared to sacrifice themselves,' and that even if they failed, "the memory of Japan will be inscribed in history forever."

Internally, it was believed that while the whole people would not be annihilated, losses would be heavy. In a 13 August meeting with Army Chief of Staff Umezu, Chief of the Naval General Staff Toyoda, and Foreign Minister Togo, Admiral Takijiro Onishi stated, "If we are prepared to sacrifice 20 million Japanese lives in a special attack effort, victory shall be ours!" Later Marquis Koichi Kido also gave the figure of 20 million to an interrogator for the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, but in reference to total casualties instead of deaths. Lt. Col. Masahiko Takeshita, a staff officer at the War Ministry and brother in law of War Minister Korechika Anami, testified that:

"We did not believe that the entire people would be completely annihilated through fighting to the finish. Even if a crucial battle were fought in the homeland and the Imperial Forces were confined to the mountainous regions, the number of Japanese killed by enemy forces would be small. Despite the constant victories of Japanese troops in the China Incident, relatively few Chinese were killed. Almost all the strategic points in China were occupied, but the Chungking Government could not be defeated. [But] even if the whole [Japanese] race were all but wiped out, its determination to preserve the national polity would be forever recorded in the annals of history."

As a result of the American naval blockade and strategic bombing campaign, the food situation in Japan had become difficult. By the end of the war the average person consumed 10 to 25% fewer calories than in 1941, and the situation was deteriorating. In January 1946, future Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida warned that unless emergency food aid was rushed to Japan, up to 10 million people could starve to death by the end of 1946. Other estimates, including those of agricultural experts working under MacArthur's headquarters, ranged from 7 million to 11 million.

- Civilian deaths (Japanese)

- Starvation (calorie restriction, Frank, Shigeru, agricultural experts)

- Marshall, "Hero of Our Times" pp. 338-339

"We had to end the war; we had to save American lives; we had to halt this terrific expenditure of money which was reaching a stupendous total," he said. "And there was no way to economize on it until we stopped the war. The bomb stopped the war. Therefore, it was justifiable [...] The Army was dominant in these matters, and they could only apparently be slugged into submission. And we slugged them."

That morning, with the news from Alamogordo in their hands, Marshall and Stimson discussed the place in Japan where the bomb could most effectively be dropped. They went through a list of Japanese cities.

"[Stimson] did veto the dropping of the bomb on Kyoto," said Harvey Bundy, because of its shrines and ancient monuments. They eventually plumped for Hiroshima instead, and Stimson went to see Truman to get his consent. Between them, he and Marshall convinced the President that though they couldn't guarantee the result of their gamble, they believed this single bomb would end the war with Japan. It was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

What Marshall did not reveal until years afterward was that he and Stimson, in the next forty-eight hours, believed that their gamble had failed and that they would therefore be forced to proceed with what the Chief of Staff had dreaded - a landing in Japan.

He had already agreed on an invasion plan with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and more atomic bombs were supposed to play an integral part in it.

"There were supposed to be nine more bombs completed in a certain time," he said later. "And they would be largely in time for the first landings in the southern tip of Japan. There were three corps to come in there, as I recall. They didn't know about it at the time, but I had gone very carefully into the examination out in New Mexico as to the aftereffects of the bomb because we were having in mind exploding one or two bombs before these landings and then having the landing take place - and then reserving the other bomb or bombs for the later movements of any Japanese reinforcements that might happen to come up. And it was decided then that the casualties from the actual fighting would be very much greater than might occur from the aftereffects of the bomb action. So there were to be three bombs for each corps that was landing. One or two, but probably one, as a preliminary, then this landing, then another further inland against the immediate supports, and then the third against any troops that might try to come through the mountains from up on the Inland Sea. And that was the rough idea in our minds."

In the light of what we now know about atomic explosions, it was a horrendous plan with consequences far beyond the terrible havoc created at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

- Military experience in Pacific War (Admiral King comment on isolated islands can't be applied to mainland) (planning the defeat of Japan pp. 154-55)

When the 3 April directives were issued, the campaign in the Ryukyus had already begun. In fact the first landing had been made on Okinawa on 1 April, to begin the main operation of that campaign. Time was already pressing on the Joint Chiefs to issue a directive for the next major campaign. Immediately, they were to find that their command directive was imperfect and that they were far from done with the problem of command. For a while at least it was inextricably tied to the problem of whether to go next to Japan or to undertake additional preliminary operations either on the Asiatic mainland or in one or more of the island groups lying closer to Japan. Admiral King and his planners in Washington were the principal supporters of plans for additional operations. This support was inspired by a number of ideas. Among them were a desire to keep up the pressure against Japan during the period between Okinawa and Kyushu ; the need for more air bases to support the invasion ; the support which such operations, especially in the Kuriles, would give the expected Russian effort ; and the constant hope by all and the positive belief by some that Japan could be forced to surrender by means short of invasion."

"The members of the Joint War Plans Committee were among those who felt most strongly that it was wishful thinking to expect unconditional surrender without invasion."

"Experience in Europe and in the larger land masses of the Pacific, such as Leyte, Luzon , and Okinawa were leading to somewhat more hopeful estimates of the casualty rates of fighting in the home islands of Japan."

-->Admiral King, on the other hand, pointed to the many differences in the nature of the geography and of the enemy in the Pacific. He disagreed with the very idea of trying to compare the fighting in Europe with that in the Pacific. Moreover, he pointed to the great advantages which the Japanese Army would have in the fight in their homeland, There they would have room to maneuver and would not be so vulnerable to the overpowering air and naval power which the Allies had been able to bring to bear against them on small and isolated islands , At home they would also be near their bases of supply and reinforcement. Despite these feelings, King continued to approve of the need for planning for the invasion ."

Ensign Kiyoshi Endo, President of Iwo Jima veterans association: 1:31:28, "the number of deaths on the Japanese side was much larger, because the Americans rescued and treated their injured. Japanese soldiers who were injured could have survived if they were rescued, but that was not possible, so they all died.

- Table of estimated impact on civilians

- Estimates of starvation from Prime Minister and Agricultural Experts (Frank, "spot famines" in 1946) (Giangreco, pp. 117-118 "Yoshida Shigeru, who before war-surplus food stocks from across the Pacific were rushed to Japan stated in January 1946 that as many as 10 million might die of starvation and malnutrition in "spot famines" that were forecast to begin by the summer of that year."

- Richard B. Finn, "Winners in Peace," SCAP historians estimated that American food aid to Japan in 1946 saved 11 million Japanese from starvation. pp. 114-115