Re: Oppenhiemer
When the Japanese*attacked Pearl Harbour, a war to the end was declared by President Roosevelt.* The end was declared as "Unconditional Surrender by Japan."
The last two Islands before the Japanese*mainland were Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
The next to last Island was Okinawa.* It took 70,000 U.S Tenth Army and Marines to take Okinawa and 3 months.* The Japanese had built*a tunnel system throughout*caves and dugouts and were heavily entrenched. The U.S had 13,000 dead,*36,000 wounded.**The Japanese had an estimated 95,000 killed, as their rules*of engagement insisted on no surrender.* These rules were enacted by the Japanese government and endorsed by the emperor.
Okinawa was used as a model for the expected casualty's estimation from a proposed landing on Japanese shores to American*troops.**
Iwo Jima: 7.000 Marines came ashore and three days later captured a landing strip, within days 60,000 Marines landed. 7,000 Marines were killed and 16,000 wounded on*Iwo Jima.* All but 200 of the 21,000 Japanese were killed, many doing Bansi charges as orders of no surrender were in effect.
After Iwo Jima, conditional feelers on surrender were put out by Japan, but not approved officially by the government or endorsed by the emperor. The US position was from the beginning "unconditional*surrender", and never changed.
Not until the dropping of the second atomic bomb did the Japanese government and Emperor offer "Unconditional surrender".
An estimated 100,000 died in one night of fire bombing In Tokyo May 25th, 1945, and I assume the Japanese thought the first atom bomb was a normal air raid. The occupation by Americans of Okinawa would allow conventional*bombing, day and night. prior to a beach landing.
*
Had there not been an atomic bomb, the Armies fighting in Europe,*American, British, Canadian, Australian etc. both troops and materiel would have been shipped out to Iwo Jima and Okinawa to Join the allied troops and naval personnel already in place and would have participated in a mass army invasion of Japan.* With horrendous casualties to the no surrender policy of the then Japanese government.* Think about that, if you think that it wasn't "cricket". dropping the atomic bombs.
The new unofficial 'emperor' after the*surrender was General Douglas MacArthur. Though an egotist with unlimited power, he kept the emperor as a constitutional*monarch and installed a political system friendly to the West that became the economic*powerhouse Japan is today, and a stable democratic constitutional monarchist as*it is today.
One last point. The rules of warfare developed by England in its early*history, was the attacking force must be three times greater than the defending force and expect to sustain far greater casualties (until they won, then they could even the score I presume).
Cheers, Rodney**
Rodney David Richard Mills
R602188 Gravesend
