this video was made possible by World of
Tanks a team-based MMO action game
dedicated to mid 20th century armored
combat in the closing days of the Second
World War the entire world knew that
Japan had lost even the Japanese
government was aware that by 1945 they
had no realistic chance of winning the
war their Navy and Air Force had been
shattered they were out of fuel they
were losing ground all over and after
the surrender of Germany and Europe they
knew that they would become the focus of
100% of the continued Allied war effort
which was basically the entire rest of
the world by this point
Japan knew that they couldn't win the
war but Japan also didn't want to
surrender unconditionally the same way
that Germany just had so they prepared
an all-out defense of the Japanese home
islands and the United States planned an
insane invasion that would have dwarfed
the d-day landings in both scale and
loss of life it would have been the
largest military operation in human
history and it would have prolonged the
war at least into 1946 and probably into
1947 or even beyond millions of
casualties on both sides would have
probably taken place but in the end none
of it ever happened because in reality
the United States dropped two atomic
bombs and the Soviet Union entered into
the war against them two extremely bad
circumstances that finally convinced
Japan to surrender unconditionally but
if the atomic bombs were never utilized
for whatever reason in Japan continue to
refuse a surrender here is how a United
States led invasion of the Japanese home
islands would have played out the United
States Co named their invasion of Japan
operation downfall America knew that any
invasion of Japan would be an incredibly
difficult prospect in her entire history
Japan has never once been conquered by
an outside invader largely because of
Japan's sheer geography I recently made
an entire video about this so go check
that out if you need our refresher
but in summary the Japanese islands are
far away from any other major landmass
which makes transporting troops and
supplies across the open ocean to fuel
the invasion difficult there are very
few suitable beaches to choose from for
a d-day style amphibious
landing which enables the Japanese to
basically defend all of them since there
aren't that many to defend and Japan's
interior is covered in mountains and
rivers that don't really connect to each
other which would make a gorilla style
resistance in the interior extremely
difficult to defeat nonetheless America
had invaded and occupied the island of
Okinawa by June 1945 in order to use it
as a base of operations in the future
invasion Okinawa you see is only 550
kilometers away from the Japanese
mainland and it would be from here that
America would launch Operation downfall
tentatively scheduled to begin on
November 1st 1945 fourteen American
divisions or over half a million men
we're going to land across 35 separate
beaches at three different points on the
southern Japanese island of Kyushu they
were to storm the beaches and push
deeper into the island before halting
once roughly one third of the island was
occupied the attack would then switch
into a defense and an occupation while
the occupied portion of Kyushu would be
used as the new base of operations for
air attacks across all of Japan and as a
base to launch the main Allied offensive
on Tokyo from the subsequent invasion of
the island of Honshu was codenamed
Operation coronet and it would have been
even bigger tentatively scheduled to
begin on March the 1st 1946 operation
coronet was planning on using 40
divisions from the United States United
Kingdom and Commonwealth forces to
launch from occupied Kyushu and land at
two points on the Kanto Plain
surrounding Tokyo on the boso Peninsula
and at Sagami Bay
for comparison's sake the entire d-day
invasion utilized only 12 divisions
compared to the 40 required for
operation coronet in the 14 previously
required for occupying Kyushu after
landing and establishing a beachhead the
Allies would then have driven north and
inland from their landing positions in a
pincer attack on Tokyo they would have
landed at least 12 more divisions for
reinforcements in an attack Tokyo
together with well over 2 million
soldiers following the occupation of
Tokyo it was then assumed that the
Japanese government would surrender the
Allies planned to use over 6 million men
42 aircraft carriers 24 battleships 400
destroyers and tens of thousands of
bombers and fighters in their invasion
of the Japanese mainland but what were
Japan's plans for a defense against the
biggest Armada ever assembled in human
history
the Japanese defensive strategy for the
home islands was codenamed Operation
katsu Go and it was quite formidable it
called for an all-out fanatical defense
of the island of Kyushu to halt the
Allies before they could get a foothold
on the mainland and threaten Tokyo 40
percent of all of Japan's remaining
ammunition was concentrated on the
island while Japanese intelligence
correctly assumed the landing beaches
that the Allies would attack at by this
point in the war Japan had been
shattered but they still had four point
three million trained soldiers that they
were planning on committing to the
defense of the islands however Japan
only had enough ammunition and supplies
to properly equip 1.2 million of those
men so it would be those men on the
beaches that would be confronting the
Allies in addition to those trained
soldiers Japanese government planned on
literally committing the entire
population of Japan to resist the
invasion all men in the country aged 15
to 60 and all women aged 17 to 40 were
going to be conscripted and armed with
basic rudimentary weapons or even bamboo
spears to join in the defense that
amounted to roughly thirty one point
five million people in Japan in addition
to the four point three million trained
soldiers technically the Japanese
defense vastly outnumbered the Allied
invasion force of six million total men
but again only 1.2 million of the
Japanese numbers would be properly
equipped and trained soldiers in
addition because of Japan's poor natural
resources the government was essentially
out of oil by this point Japan only had
five aircraft carriers and four
battleships remaining all of which were
damaged and none of which had enough
fuel to carry out sorties so they
planned on keeping the ships anchored in
harbors and using their anti-air guns to
defend against Allied air attacks but
one thing that Japan still had a lot of
at this
was planes well over 12,000 of them
still even at the end of the war the
vast majority of these planes were
intended to be used as kamikazes suicide
attacks on Allied ships and transports
as they came close to the beaches the
Japanese planners assumed a hit rate of
one in every six kamikaze attacks but
they hoped to simply overrun the Allied
ships with their vast swarms of
thousands of planes all at once as if
they were locusts the Japanese planners
hoped to sing 400 Allied ships and
transports with the style of attacks
combined with small manned suicide
torpedoes suicide divers who had swim
underneath ships with mines and
thousands more of kamikaze motor boats
laden with explosives the Japanese
defense of Kyushu was going to be
all-out and metal but it left little in
reserve for the defense of Tokyo in the
Kanto Plain if they failed
Japan's primary objective was to make
the cost of invasion too high for the
Allies to accept and force a kind of
armistice where Japan could hopefully
hang on to some of its conquests rather
than admitting a total defeat and losing
everything it's unknown exactly how many
lives would have been lost as a result
of the invasion American planners
estimated that somewhere between 500,000
and 1 million American soldiers would
have died as a result of the operation
along with hundreds of thousands of
additional British and Commonwealth
soldiers at the same time estimates for
Japanese deaths as a consequence ranged
between 5 million and 10 million the war
would have been extended well into 1946
and probably pushed into 1947 or even
beyond the United States minted 500,000
Purple Heart medals in anticipation for
how many they'd have to give out to
wounded American soldiers but none of
that ever happened the American
government decided to use the atomic
bomb and the Soviet Union invaded
Manchuria and Japan surrendered without
the invasion ever taking place and
honestly it's probably ultimately a good
thing that events went that
and millions of people managed to stick
around with us when they otherwise
wouldn't have now if you're really into
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for watching