"The Invasion of Japan:
Alternative to the Bomb" by
John Ray Skates
This book gives the details of the plans of Operation Olympic, the invasion of the southern island of Kyushu and make naval and air bases from which medium bombers and long range fighters could cover most of Japan, and Operation Coronet, the invasion near Tokyo which would occupy that city and adjacent areas. The book reaches opposite conclusions to Allen & Polmar's "Code-Name Downfall on the extent of the casualties expected, and the differences between the two books are a little disconcerting - the only estimate in common between the two books is MacArthur's of June 17 of 95,050 for the first 90 days of Olympic, but the two sources differ by 10,000. These is little coverage of Japanese casualties of the deaths associated with continued Japanese occupation of China.
A personal peeve is that the book
discusses the decline in the quality of kamikaze pilots, but not
their increase in effectiveness in operating in the home islands
where ground clutter would greatly reduce the effectiveness of
radar and the destroyer picket ship tactic couldn't be used. There
is much more military detail in Skates' book, but much less on
the political machinations in the deadlocked Japanese Supreme
War Council. Both cover the disagreements in Washington on the
use of the atomic bomb. It would also have been improved by a
discussion of the Japanese knowledge of the atomic bomb - Nishina,
who headed the Japanese atom bomb program, made reasonably accurate
estimates of the yield and
amount of U235 in the Hiroshima bomb before the surrender and
the Japanese were more shocked by the Nagasaki bomb three days
later, because it seemed to indicate that there would be many.
For the moment, I'm waiting for Richard B. Franks book on the
same topic.
Reviewed by Jim Gilbert, 31 August 1999
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