Was the invasion of Okinawa even necessary?

The bomb was a secret (or so the plan was) and was not a sure thing.  I think they had to have plan ‘A’ the conventional route and the ‘long shot’ the atom bomb.

@Fishmoto37:

Washington knew the BOMB worked. Why not wait to see the results before spending lives on the Okinawa invasion? Okinawa was needed as a base for the invasion of mainland Japan. But what was the big hurry if the BOMB could end it all?

It is still another piece of land under our control. I would assume the U.S. wanted to get all the land they could so when the war ended, it could be easier to deal with.

Also on the plan A and ‘long shot’, we only had 2 bombs, what were we to do if the Japanese had not surrendered like most of the Generals had wanted to. We still would’ve had to invade IMO.

There was many that thought Bomb or no Bomb, an invasion of the Japanese Islands would be necessary, to knock Japan out of the war. If an invasion was to take place, a sizable stageing area would need to be secure, that place was Okinawa. Up to that time, no large scale surrender of Japanese troops had taken place. It was thought we might have to bleed the Japanese homeland white, in order to win the war. Such an operation would make ‘Overlord’ look small.

The Trinity test of the atomic bomb was on July 16, 1945.  Only then did they truly know the fatman plutonium bomb would work.  The US had a total of 6 bombs by the end of 1945, and I am not sure if that includes the 1 test and 2 used against Japan so they might have only had a few more to use.

Planes do get lost and shot down, things happen.  It was not at all certain these nuclear attacks were going to have the effect they did.  Moreover, the invasion of Okinawa started in April 1945, 3 months before the first test never mind operational use.

So, the invasion was not necessary if the US was willing to abruptly halt conventional invasion and telegraph the fact they had a different way of winning.

Many B-29’s and P-51’s were forced to make emergency landings at airfields on Okinawa as the aircraft could not fly any further due to loss of fuel or battle damage. This in itself likely saved hundreds of lives in the long run especially if the war had of continued into 1946.

As others have said a staging area was required and Okinawa was the best for the purposes of an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Also had the emperor not got involved in making the Japanese surrender possible, its likely that the war would of continued until the Japanese military was completely destroyed by the means of an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

The U.S. had no way of knowing for sure whether the two A-bombs dropped on Japan would convince the Japanese leaders to stop fighting.  The movie “Japan’s Longest Day”, which deals with the events leading up to the Japanese surrender, shows just how strongly some of those leaders wanted to keep fighting to the last man, even after the two A-bombs were dropped.  They wanted to force the Americans to invade the home islands and incur such massive casualties in the process that the U.S. would be persuaded to negotiate peace terms favourable to Japan.

WARS ARE FOUGHT IN THE WILL

The capture of Okinawa was a paramount -will- item,  something that could break the Japanese resolve, coupled with everything else that was toppling around them.

“You hit your enemy with your fist, not your fingers spread.” - Guderian

The oppurtunity presented itself, so command went into Okinawa, we weren’t holding any punches, we we’re giving it to the Japanese as hard and as quick as possible.

Therefore Okinawa was a MUST.

For Micarthur and Patton to meet in central russia it was absolutely necessary
the other 4 a bombs could have been put to good use against anything that stood in their way

The US managed to put together only three bombs by August 1945: one uranium bomb and two plutonium bombs.  The Manhattan Project scientists knew that the mechanically simpler uranium bomb would work, but they weren’t sure about the more complex implosion-type plutonium bombs, so one of them was expended in a test (the Trinity explosion).  That left them with two operational bombs, which were used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Months earlier, U.S. analysts had concluded that it would take at least two bombs to (hopefully) convince Japan to give up: the first bomb to prove that the U.S. had a functional atomic weapon, and the second bomb to prove that they had more than one.

Regardless of the outcome of the A-bomb attacks, it was prudent for the U.S. to plan for an invasion of the Japanese home islands (Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet) in case Japan didn’t surrender after the A-bomb was used.  Such an invasion required preliminary steps, one of which was to prepare to transfer some U.S. troops from Europe (where the war had ended in May 1945) to the Pacific.  This transfer plan infuriated and dismayed the G.I.s in Europe who had expected to be sent home once Germany was defeated, but fortunately it never had to be carried out due to Japan’s surrender.  Taking Okinawa for use as a U.S. staging area, and to eliminate it as a Japanese airbase, was probably another necessity.

Conceivably, the U.S. could simply have continued to fire-bomb Japan into eventual submission (Curtis Lemay’s B-29s managed to demolish much of Tokyo without using any atomic weapons), without an actual invasion, if Japan had not given up.  One argument against this strategy, however, is that the many months this would have required would have given the Russians (who declared war of Japan in early August and invaded Machuria) an opportunity to land troops on the Japanese home islands – perhaps even before the Americans themselves could land.  A Russian occupation of part of the home islands would have greatly complicated the settlement of the war and the establishment of the post-war power balance.  As things turned out, Japan surrendered before the Russians could set foot on the Japanese home islands; the Americans occupied the country, and basically took the position that Japan was now exclusively in the American sphere of interest and control, just as Eastern Europe was exclusively in the Soviet sphere of interest and control.

Okinawa needed to be invaded as a plan b for a bomb failure. Think about pelielu, wrote off as an easy victory, phillipenes had been invaded a few days before successfully, ended up being the bloodiest and costliest battle of the war IMO

The more Japanese land that was under US control, the better….agreed that it was necessary in case the bombs failed, or if Japan was going to fight to the last man.  The faster and the more able to take over the main island before Russia could muster its own invasion force would help prevent a divided Japan like that of Germany/Berlin…imagine how the last 60 years would have played out with a divided Japan?

@Fishmoto37:

How could the USSR have invaded Japan?

The short answer is, they couldn’t.

The invasion of Okinawa was needed from a logistical standpoint as a staging area for further operations. If the US needed to make an amphibious landing on the Japanese home islands, then Okinawa was going to be essential as a forward base. For this location the US could amass supplies, equipment, organize replacement troops and have large field hospitals to help care for the massive amounts of wounded an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have entailed. Also by using the airfields at Okinawa and Iwo Jima, air cover for any land assault could be greatly increased as land base fighters/bombers could be added to the air fleets operating off the carriers. As was stated earlier the invasion of Japan proper would make D-day look like a side show and the Us would need all the material support they could get

Declaration of war by the Soviets happened and begun invasion of Manchuria and other positions on Aug 8th (two days prior to Hiroshima, day prior to Nagasaki).  Fighting continued, even after the surrender, but the Soviets would have joined, because for them, it more territory, more global influence, and hinder western democracies.

Couldn’t? You mean not at that point…while they were not as well managed in the Pacific yet, the Soviets made numerous large assaults against Japanese held lands and islands…so to say they couldn’t, is far fetched…it would have been another coridinated assault, with the major powers together invading and capturing Tokyo, and thus dividing it like Berlin/Germany…

See also for further indication of this: Korea

@Mallery29:

See also for further indication of this: Korea

The Soviet Union shared a land border with Korea, that’s how they were able to invade it, as well as most of the other Japanese territory they over-ran during WW2. The Soviets hand neither the logistical capacity nor the shipping to manage a large scale invasion of Japan that would have been necessary to secure themselves an occupation zone like they did in Germany. Even in the operations on Sakhalin island the Soviets had a land border to start from and their invasion of the Kuril islands was slap-dash at best, with most of their troops being brought to shore in mine trawlers and PT boats. The 20,000 strong Japanese garrison didn’t even put up a fight as the surrender was already in effect so its not like the Soviets were making a hostile land fall anyway. In the grand scheme of things these were very small operations and a full scale invasion of Japan, even Hokkaido, would require ten times the shipping and logistical support that the Soviet Union did not have.