The Invasion of Japan - Operation Olympic / Downfall

When my Dad felt like talking about his WWII military experiences, he told me that had Operation Olympic actually occurred, he probably would have been in one of the first few waves to go ashore in Japan, with casualties expected to be very heavy. He was with the 123rd Infantry Regt, 33rd Infantry Division (now the 33rd Brigade, Illinois Nat'l Guard), and they'd just wrapped up combat operations against the Japanese in northern Luzon (Philippines). He said his unit was onboard a ship training for the invasion of Japan when word came (after the second A-bomb attack) that Japan had surrendered. He said that although booze was forbidden onboard ships, he never saw so many bottles of whiskey materialize so fast in his life. The 33rd went on to occupation duty in central Japan before Dad got rotated home and discharged in December 1945 (it all depended on how many "points" one had accumulated by virtue of length of service and other factors). So when people say that President Truman's decision to deploy the A-bombs was bad/evil/whatever, I can't agree since the decision probably saved my Dad's life. Dad lived to be 93, and I have his medals and badges, a Japanese police sword he brought back, in addition to two inscribed Japanese flags (one with the names of his unit members, and the other in Kanji script that he got off a dead Japanese soldier). I also have a S&W M1917 .45 revolver that he brought back (he didn't like his M1911A1 pistol and swapped it to a Filipino soldier), although it is in pretty rough shape and unshootable.

PFC (Join to see) Wow! Super interesting. Thank you for the share.

Thanks for sharing. For anyone who doubts how costly the invasion of Japan would have been the US is still awarding purple hearts that were manufactured and stockpiled for the casualties we were expected to take. That stockpile was used for the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf and current Global War on Terror. There are still over 400,000 left.
One thing to consider is that the Russians also had gotten involved. Between the dropping of the bombs and the official surrender of Japan the Russians had crushed the Japanese Army in Mongolia causing over 700,000 casualties ( mostly POW). They had even taken a few small Japanese Islands in the North. The Soviets would have been able to put 1,000,000 men into the fight for the mainland.