What If Japan Hadn’t Surrendered in WWII? A Look at the Horrifying ‘Operation Downfall’

National Security Journal ^ | 8/6/2025 | Robert Farley

[whyilovetexas111]

Eighty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, this analysis explores Operation Downfall, the massive Allied invasion of Japan that was averted by Tokyo’s surrender. The two-stage plan, Operations Olympic and Coronet, would have involved more than twice the forces of the Normandy landings and was expected to be unimaginably costly.

[Retain Mike]

You are welcome.

[Fury]

Your reporting tracks with mine. My stepdaughter was taught in Japanese school about WW2 including Pearl Harbor and the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe it depends on region (she grew up in Fujinomiya)?

She went to “high school” and graduated in Dublin, Ireland and WW2 was definitely taught in that school.

[Whatever Works]

It could be. I taught in Kanagawa prefecture.

[DesertRhino]

That tells me it probably wasn’t the totally all-consuming nightmare we’ve been told it was for the past half decade. If it had been, Japan would have announced their surrender on Aug 6 or Aug 7, instead of on Aug 10, the day after the 2nd A-bomb.

No, more like a case of slow communications and a lack of true comprehension on their part for what had happened. When Hiroshima dropped off all communications, they sent a plane to go look and see what had happened. When he reported back, it took them time to realize it was the work of a single bomb and to comprehend the sheer devastation.

[DesertRhino]

Not exactly accurate. Look up “Operation Hula”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hula#:~:text=Project%20Hula%20was%20a%20secret,Island%2C%20and%20the%20Kuril%20Islands.

In the spring of 1945 through early September 1945, we sent 149 warships and large LCI landing craft to them and trained about 12,000 of their men in Alaska. We were giving them sealift to land in Japan.

[DesertRhino]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hula#:~:text=Project%20Hula%20was%20a%20secret,Island%2C%20and%20the%20Kuril%20Islands.

We gave them 149 amphib ships and had more on the way. We trained them in Alaska... about 12,000 Soviet Sailors. If it came down to it, we would get them there.

[DesertRhino]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hula#:~:text=Project%20Hula%20was%20a%20secret,Island%2C%20and%20the%20Kuril%20Islands.

We were taking them there, and giving them the landing craft and shipping to do it with.

[DesertRhino]

Tokyo was already completely gone. We wouldn’t be nuking that. It was utterly destroyed by the B-29 fire bombing raid.

“The strikes conducted by the USAAF on the night of 9–10 March 1945, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, constitute the single most destructive aerial bombing raid in human history. 16 square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo was destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless”

It wasn’t in line for a nuke.

[GingisK]

I believe the Emperor didn’t have a problem with an honorable death of his entire population. He did not like the idea of all of them dying without being able to fight it out.

[GingisK]

Nagasaki and Hiroshima are thriving cities today.

Quite unlike Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburg.

[zigmeisterxiv]

My Marine Dad was on a troop ship in the Pacific when we dropped the big one. Said everybody was cheering, figuring surrender was imminent.

I’m blessed he wasn’t scarred by his participation in the war, often recalling his service with nostalgia. A good tempered, nice guy and a great father.

[GingisK]

Why? Payback is magnificent and everybody wanted to go home.

[zigmeisterxiv]

My opinion, given those times ... any nation that had the bomb was gonna use it, don’t be silly.

Z

[Antoninus]

If it came down to it, we would get them there.

The operative phrase is "we could get them there."

We didn't want them there. We weren't especially happy about Stalin invading Manchukuo a week before the war ended. Some would argue that's why we dropped the bomb -- to end the war before the Soviets could consolidate their gains.

As it turned out, the Soviets took all of that captured Japanese military hardware from Manchukuo and turned it over to the Chinese communists -- much to the world's later regret.

[scrabblehack]

I was thinking kudzu did that.

[real saxophonist]

My dad commanded an LCT on Utah Beach. Later, he was XO on an LST, headed for the Pacific to prepare for the invasion of Japan.

They were somewhere around the Panama Canal when the war ended.

[scrabblehack]

I’ve heard one of the things the USA agreed to was to not execute Hirohito.

[dfwgator]

I’ve heard one of the things the USA agreed to was to not execute Hirohito.

---

Which in the end was a smart move. It ensured stability in Japan.

I always believed that we should have kept The Kaiser in power in Germany after WWI. Would have saved the world a lot of trouble, even if he wasn’t a saint.

[TexasGator]

“Side note: Russia and Japan have never signed a WW2 Peace Agreement. Technically still at war ( some say).”

More fake info from the master!

[dfwgator]

Japan and Russia fought battles in 1939, even though there was no declaration of war, the most significant being the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. Some Russian general named “Zhukov” was victorious there, and basically as a result, Japan and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty soon afterwards. Japan was already upset with Hitler, for signing his non-aggression pact with Stalin, so in a way this was their revenge on Der Fuhrer.