NOBODY was going to invade Japan after Okinawa, nor did anybody need to. Okinawa put American heavy bombers within 300 miles of Japan instead of the 1400 from the Mariannas; that would have had the effect of tripling or quadrupling the numbers of those B29s, had there been any remaining real targets for B29s.
I mean, try looking at Japan on Google Earth and come back to me with how many fields of grain you can find. Japan was totally dependent on the sea and its access to the sea had been cut off and all of their large ships destroyed. If they'd really wanted to go on fighting after September 45 it would have been little fishing boats versus bearcats. Who do you really think would win a bearcat vs fishing boat fight??
the only method for holding land after conquest is with infantry. Bombers are good, but they cannot win a war.
You are right about the 100 carriers. Acutally 99 commissioned during the war.
The Japanese navy was pretty much exhausted after the Battle of Leyte Gulf and was not a real concern.
If there had been an invasion, their planes would have been flying from airfields, not from ships.
A friend of mine, in his eighties now, was told to write his goodbye letter to his family. He was a Marine on Okinawa and was informed that they were going to be landing on Kyushu within a few days and it was not expected that any of them would survive.
The first bomb was dropped the next day and he came home and had a family.
Japan had to be put down permanently. It was extremely dangerous.
You need to have someone sit down and explain to you the diference between a carrier and an escort carrier.
NOBODY was going to invade Japan after Okinawa
By "NOBODY", do perhaps mean, "MacArthur"? The troops and supplies wee already underway, dear. Your statement is patently absurd.
I mean, try looking at Japan on Google Earth and come back to me with how many fields of grain you can find. Japan was totally dependent on the sea and its access to the sea had been cut off and all of their large ships destroyed.
Japn fed itself prior to 1860 without any foreign trade whatsoever.
If they'd really wanted to go on fighting after September 45 it would have been little fishing boats versus bearcats. Who do you really think would win a bearcat vs fishing boat fight??
No one is saying we would not have won. What you don't seem to want to acknowledge is that Japan was not going to go without an extremely bloody fight that would have dwarfed Okinawa - unless we used the game-changer the we developed in the mountains of east Tennessee, the Snake River Valley of Washington State, and the deserts of New Mexico.