He describes in detail the two phases of the plan, Operations OLYMPIC and CORONET he assesses the strength of Japanese defenses and discusses other topics that would influence an invasion - redeployment from Europe, Allied participation in the invasion, and the possible use of special weapons, especially gas. Beginning with a brief overview of DOWNFALL, Skates analyzes the evolution of the invasion plan. In The Invasion of Japan, he remedies that oversight and, in doing so, disputes many myths that have grown up around the invasion strategy.
ever, argues that the invasion plan, code named Operation DOWNFALL, has never been adequately studied to draw such a conclusion. Widely held beliefs about the strength of Japanese forces and the projected loss of American lives have justified the course of action taken by the United States. While scholars and non-scholars alike have debated the ethics of dropping the atomic bomb for more than half a century, rarely have they questioned the decision not to invade Japan as a means of ending World War II. In emphasizing these matters, this analysis, while not dwelling on the use of the atomic bomb, does seek to place the bomb's use significantly in the context of America's other military activities in World War II as an important way of helping to understand the much-disputed bomb decision. Had the war not ended in mid-August 1945, this article contends, in an explicit counterfactual analysis, that the President and top military officials might have reconsidered Operation Olympic and perhaps decided on a different military operation or possibly, but less likely, decided against any invasion. battle casualties in the American invasion of Japan, the unsettling evidence of the growing Japanese troop buildup on Southern Kyushu in summer of 1945, the wariness of Washington about conducting the scheduled November 1945 invasion (code named Operation Olympic) in that Japanese area, and the efforts by American military planners to. This article stresses President Truman's concern about U.S. After nearly two decades of restoration, the Enola Gay will be one of the highlights of the museum’s new Udvar-Hazy Center, which is scheduled to open at Dulles International Airport on December 15, 2003. This book tells the story of the Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 program, and the combat operations of the B-29 type. The original, controversial exhibit script was changed, and the final exhibition attracted some 4 million visitors, testifying to the enduring interest in the aircraft and its mission. The aircraft was the primary artifact in an exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum from 1995 to 1998. The Japanese government, which had been preparing a bloody defense against an invasion, surrendered six days later. Three days later, another B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The "Little Boy" bomb exploded with the force of 12.5 kilotons of TNT, nearly destroying the city. The world entered the atomic age in August 1945, when the B-29 Superfortress nicknamed Enola Gay flew some 1,500 miles from the island of Tinian and dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.