Had the atomic bomb not been used in Japan...

[ioweddie]

The 1945 Naval Armada Set to Invade Japan.

It was 1944 and these pictures were not
available during the war.

The US kept this place unknown to the citizens of the US.

An Armada of ships and airplanes poised for the invasion of Japan...
that never happened... because President Truman authorized the
dropping of "A" bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima that resulted in the
Japanese surrender.

There will never be
another assemblage of naval ships like this again.

Staging area for the invasion of Japan. Check out the carriers on
"Murderer's Row."


Click below:
http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=52966

 

[Craiglxviii]

Not just those either. The Soviets had thoroughly routed the Japanese armies in Manchuria and were getting ready to stage their own invasion. We had our own invasion force ready too. And the surrender very nearly didn't happen, there was almost a coup by the Showa edict General Staff who wanted to carry on the war to the lives of the last woman and child in the country.

The numbers planned for Ops OLYMPIC & CORONET are staggering. 54 infantry divisions, the US 3rd, 5th, 7th and British Pacific Fleets (each with 4-6 carriers, each with 100 strike aircraft), 7 air forces (corps equivalents, 300 heavy bombers or 500 strike aircraft each). And that's without the Soviets...

Murderers Row is a very apt name that Halsey came up with. Each carrier group would fly off a wave of strike aircraft every 45 minutes or so. Because those carriers could retreat out of range of land and then run in at high speed, they could pop up unexpectedly so avoid the Japanese (ever decreasing) air defences. Each wave would swamp the target with a hornets nest of 50-60 aeroplanes all dropping bombs, firing rockets, strafing and generally shooting everything up they found. The result was that at the end of strike 4 or 5 the target area, and any defences between it and the coast, were in total disarray and well on the way to being destroyed. Fast carrier based air is a nasty thing indeed for land based defenders even today.

 

[range rover]

Why is it that this reminds me of the disastrous battle of the Somme in July 1916, after a terrific pounding the Germans were still fighting fit, and they hadn't the same mindset of the Japanese.
Unfortunately the Atomic bomb was the answer and until everybody forgets, or refuses to remember like the holocaust deniers for example, we today are reaping the benefits of a weapon which was used all those years ago.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Why is it that this reminds me of the disastrous battle of the Somme in July 1916, after a terrific pounding the Germans were still fighting fit, and they hadn't the same mindset of the Japanese.
Unfortunately the Atomic bomb was the answer and until everybody forgets, or refuses to remember like the holocaust deniers for example, we today are reaping the benefits of a weapon which was used all those years ago.

Fat Man and Little Boy were the best things to happen to the Japanese... by a long way. Never mind the Western Allies, the Soviets had an SOP of "rape and pillage" and made it abundantly clear that's what they were planning for Hokkaido.

The Somme Campaign of 1916 is nothing like a fair comparison. By this point the Japanese were on their last legs in every sense. The whole civilian economy had been stripped to the bone to provide for the war economy; there was no fuel for motor vehicles; no fuel oil for warships; food supplies were very low. Their fishing fleet was in shreds thanks to the deck guns of US submarines, their merchant fleet mostly on the bottom (not that there was much to start with); rice production on the Home Islands couldn't keep up with demand. Their armies were shredded, the Manchuria diversion had stripped critical divisions away and bled them white. General Curtis LeMay's B-29s were firebombing Japanese cities to cinders nightly without much risk of interception. In contrast, Imperial Germany of 1918 was in a far better position.

Op DOWNFALL was going down come hell or high water by spring '46, everyone knew that.

 

[davemercedes]

Thank you range rover.

I have no doubt that we have enjoyed 60 years of relative peace because of worldwide fear of the ultimate weapon - warts and all. It's quite fitting that nowadays the major nuclear powers agree that enough is enough because we all recognise that we could face obliteration in a few moments.

I'm not a romantic but just think what we (East and West) could have done together over the last 50 odd years...

 

[prwales]

The use of the bomb was just as much about demonstrating to Russia what the USA had as it was about destroying Japanese morale. As previously pointed out the fire bombing raids killed far more civilians than the 2 atomic weapons did

 

[Craiglxviii]

The use of the bomb was just as much about demonstrating to Russia what the USA had as it was about destroying Japanese morale. As previously pointed out the fire bombing raids killed far more civilians than the 2 atomic weapons did

It wasn't about killing civilians or even demonstrating to the Soviets. It was about demonstrating that a city could be deleted by a single unit without any risk to the Americans.

 

[prwales]

It wasn't about killing civilians or even demonstrating to the Soviets. It was about demonstrating that a city could be deleted by a single unit without any risk to the Americans.

As the Japanese had by that stage no air defence the US could do whatever they wished with minimal risk. The A bomb did not end the war, but it has limited the nature of war ever since, for that we should be grateful.

 

[Craiglxviii]

As the Japanese had by that stage no air defence the US could do whatever they wished with minimal risk. The A bomb did not end the war, but it has limited the nature of war ever since, for that we should be grateful.

No they didn't- well, the risk their defences posed was around 1/10th that of the Superforts just trying to operate in the first place.

The point was that massive casualties could be caused and, more importantly, strategic targets eliminated by an individual platform. Dresden was eliminated by two days of strategic bombardment, and about 6000 sorties. The Fat Man and Little Boy laydowns were performed by single aircraft. The point is that not only the risk, but the logistical effort per ton of TNT effective delivered underwent a paradigm shift. That meant that more resources could be employed in improving the performance of the delivery platforms (which resulted in the B-36 and B-47 aircraft), making it more likely for them to evade any known defences... and so on.

Incidentally, the Model 1561 Little Boy gun- type device expended at Hiroshima was always rated at 15kT. New data has revised that down to just under 8kT, or 0.33% efficiency.

Totally correct on the limiting nature of war though. When the Task Force sailed south on Op CORPORATE in '82, both HERMES & INVINCIBLE very publically landed their "Special Stores" to let the Argentinians know that the gloves were off and they were in for a thoroughly conventional shoeing.