Why Did We Nuke Japan In World War II?

There are quite a few people out there that believe the we never should have used the atomic bomb in World War II. They feel that we had an overwhelming advantage over the Japanese in 1945 and that we could have taken the mainland islands fairly easily in an invasion, because we had superior numbers and superior amounts of ships and planes. There was even a time when we planned an invasion of Japan and it was based on the fact that we believed that the Japanese had about 4,000 planes of all kinds left. We knew that their navy was decimated, so we didn't expect much resistance from that area. It seemed that the only problem that we would have, would be fighting the entire population of Japan. Yes the entire population, because the Japanese planned to arm everyone even the children.

Hirohito, Emperor Of Japan During World War II
Photo Source: Public Domain

It is a funny thing about U.S. Intelligence, it seems to get a lot of things wrong. There is no doubt that it also gets a lot right, but how do you tell right from wrong? Do you consider all intelligence correct, most intelligence correct, or do you try and figure out what intelligence to disregard? I bring this up because the intelligence we gained about the Japanese air force at the end of the war could not have been more incorrect. We had figured that the actual air force had about 2,500 planes left and the rest that made up the 4,000 figure were from various other sources. What we didn't know was that the Japanese had almost 18,000 planes and were building more every day. They had convinced thousands of people to become suicide pilots. They even had rocket planes that they were saving for the invasion. They had so many planes that they were planning to send out as many as 1,000 plane waves against an invasion fleet. They had suicide planes, along with torpedo planes and bombers, scheduled to come at us every hour in huge waves as long as our invasion fleet was off shore. We know about the planes through captured Japanese documents.

The Americans had planned to invade Japan with two huge fleets of ships. An example of this is that we had 55 aircraft carriers as part of one huge fleet that contained battleships, heavy cruisers, cruisers, destroyers and other ships. This fleet of ships was the combination of the Third and Fifth Fleets and was under the command of Admiral William “Bull” Halsey. Its big guns were going to be used to soften up the targets before the actual invasion started. We had used this tactic before on many of the islands where we fought the Japanese on our way to Japan. It never seemed to work very well, since the Japanese were always dug in. The fleet was to continue pounding the islands of Japan until the actual invasion landed on the beaches. For one of the first times the actual invasion force would be outnumbered by the Japanese. About a million men were to hit the beaches with about 3 million in support.

British Surrender At Singapore To Japanese
Photo Source: Public Domain

The invasion fleet that would carry the troops consisted of about 3,000 ships. It was under the command of Admiral Raymond Spruance, This fleet was the prime target for the Japanese. The Japanese navy still had over 40 submarines left and some of them carried torpedoes that had a range of 20 miles. These torpedoes were called Long Lance torpedoes. The Japanese plan called for the interception of the American invasion fleet when it got to within 180 miles from Kyushu. Thousands of suicide planes were ready to send as many ships as possible to the bottom and history has shown us that they were capable of causing extreme damage. Along with the planes, flying piloted rocket bombs were also ready to be used. The devastation to this fleet would have been enormous and the amount of troops that would have been left for the invasion is unknown, but it would have been far less than the million or so that was planned

Another factor that is not mentioned much, is the fact that even though we had defeated the Japanese on individual islands, they still had most of their army intact. It was estimated that at the end of the war the Japanese army was still at about 95% of its original size. Many of their troops were in China and Korea and they had planned to recall them to fight off the invasion. In 1945 there were 5 million Japanese troops active in the military in 145 divisions and a very large militia. After the war the Japanese army still had 2 million men in the defense army and 6,095,000 they could call on. This was no little force to be taken lightly. The Japanese had proved that they would fight to the death.

US Battleships
Photo Source: US Navy

Getting back to the use of the atomic bomb, President Truman was faced with the fact that he had found out that the invasion was going to face a lot more resistance then he first thought. Some say he was told that we would suffer at least 1 million dead and wounded, or even far more. At the same time he was told that we had just developed a nuclear weapon of incredible power that could end the war, but the cost to human life would be apocalyptic and that we only had two such weapons ready. He carefully weighed everything. I am sure that the fact that he was about to kill so many people if he decided to use the new bombs must have weighed heavily on his mind, but to him the alternative was even worse. That is why he decided to use such a terrible weapon. The Japanese had surrendered after the second nuclear bomb was dropped. They did not know that we didn't have more at the time.