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Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan-And Why Truman Dropped the Bomb

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In Codename Downfall, Allen and Polmar accomplish an amazing feat. In a book describing U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to use the atom bomb, they make the world's only nuclear attacks seem almost unimportant.

Fifty years have passed since U.S. bombers annihilated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but those events have been debated frequently and furiously ever since. Using insightful research the authors paint so terrible a picture of the Pacific war's escalating destruction it even dwarfs the instant vaporization of two complete cities.

Downfall does not linger on the classic numerical comparison of lives lost to nukes versus invasion. Instead, the authors provide a sweeping account of the Allies' efforts to liberate or capture island after island in their determined drive to seize the Japanese homeland and stop the Japanese war-making ability.

Both sides expected a full mobilization of every Japanese citizen to fight what would be the largest invasion of all time. As Japanese generals preached about "100 million souls" all dying together, the American leaders searched for any alternative to the "decisive battle" as the Japanese military referred to it. The book described how the U.S. leaders grasped at the atomic bomb as a last, desperate hope to avoid this bloody climax their enemies thirsted for.

By the end of the book, the reader no longer wonders why Truman dropped the Bomb, but how the Japanese leaders could refuse the mercy of a peaceful surrender. Responsibility for the bombing finally rests squarely on the shoulders of the Japanese "cabinet."

Codename Downfall gives a fresh and convincing perspective on a very old question.

R. Day: May 29, 1996

While the overall argument of this title is to show why Truman approved the use of the atomic bomb, Allen and Polmar also show the strengths and weaknesses of the grand strategies pursued by the U.S. and Japan during World War II. The American failure to truly appreciate the massive national effort to defeat the Axis powers lead to a reliance on a bombing campaign to knock Japan out of the war, the apotheosis of which were the atomic bombs. The Japanese expected to exhaust America through heroic sacrifice and terror weapons. Code-name Downfall does a better job than most books on this period of the war in discussing the internal Japanese debate over surrender. My main complaint is that the book fails to consider the possible success of the continued American submarine campaign against the Japanese merchant marine. Nonetheless, highly recommended for all those interested in the Pacific campaigns in World War II and those debating the dropping of the atomic bomb.

When Col. Paul Tibbets, flying the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, it was prevent an American invasion of Japan. If the bombs were not dropped and the ensuing cataclysms had not caused Emperor Hirohito to break the tie in the War cabinet, bringing the unconditional surrender of Japan, a massive invasion would have been necessary - one that would have dwarfed the one at Okinawa, which required twice as many ships as are in the entire United States Navy today. Arrayed against the Americans were millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians, all of which the defense minister Anami wanted to mobilize in what he described as "the glorious death of 100 million." For the first time, a book details the actual plan to invade Japan, summarizing the experience and tactics that led up to it and the losses that were envisioned.

I must differ with the critic of this book's "failure" to analyze the mechanics of invasion and casualty estimates. Desert Storm is a poor analogy: we were frankly astonished by Iraqi incompetence, while with Japan we were all too familiar with their lethality and tenacity.

I do believe the book dwelled overly on the wildly varying estimates of casualties, but this entire futile pursuit misses the central point of whether the invasion would have been bloody enough to rationalize dropping the bomb. After Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and other island invasions where nearly every Japanese defender died rather than surrender, where kamikaze attacks were orchestrated rather than impulsive, it looked far more than likely. The unanswered moral question is how many American lives were worth how many Hiroshima or Nagasaki Japanese lives.

There are several points that the authors focus on refuting, the key one being that Japan was on the verge of surrender or a negotiated peace. The new piece in the puzzle, according to the authors, is the Japanese messages we decrypted during the war and did not declassify until the 90's, showing Japanese insincerity and duplicity in its peace feelers. Also, a negotiated peace may have been difficult for Americans to accept in light of bitterness over Pearl Harbor, an attack which may have ironically proved to be Japan's most collossal error.

Another interesting argument is that Truman did not see the bomb as an alternative to invasion, but a supplement. Although coupled with the Russian declaration of war, the bomb's success, and perhaps its cruelty, came as a surprise.

That said, this book falls short of the similarly-named but far more comprehensive Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank, which I recommend reading first.

This is an excellent book which contains background information not normally known to history buffs. The inside information about Japanese thoughts and culture as it pertains to surrender was very informative.

It is hard for me to grasp that some misguided critics still believe that the US was wrong to drop two atomic bombs on Japanese cities at the close of World War II. I wrote a paper on this question in 1961 while an electrical engineering student at Arizona State University for my English class. However, I did not have access to the war planning documents cited in this book, written by two men who have both written books on military subjects. Both authors were consultants to various US administrations. I didn't know that by October 31, 1945 the US would have had seven atomic bombs ready for use. Because the projected casualty rates on both sides exceeded 100,000 if we had invaded Japan, plans existed calling for tactical use against Japanese armed forces!!

This book authoratively presents all information known at the time President Truman made his fateful decision in such a manner as to allow readers to make their own decision.Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan-And Why Truman Dropped the Bomb., available at Amazon.com, where I purchased it.

Downfall is subtitled "the secret plan to invade Japan and why Truman dropped the bomb". Supposedly this account traces the US plan to invade Japan but starts back in the 1930s and runs out of steam covering the war in episode fashion. Incredibly, the authors employ a useless blow-by-blow summary of the Pacific War, including diversions on minor incidents like PT109. By the time the authors get to the planning for Operations Olympic and Coronet, the authors devote virtually their entire focus on various casualty estimates - were they too high and did this drive the decision to drop the bomb. However these casualty estimates, which range from well considered to wild guesses, do not constitute any sort of "proof" about the efficacy of the invasion plans. Readers should consider just how erroneous the casualty estimates for Desert Storm were (anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000, actual US killed in action 148) and reflect, if Iraq had backed down in 1991 could historians have accurately assessed the viability of coalition plans based on these estimates. Proper history begins with facts, not opinions.

For readers who expect a lengthy discussion and analysis of the US invasion plans, this book is a great disappointment since the authors never discusses the plan in detail. The two sketch maps that depict the US plans "Olympic" (the landing on Kyushu) and "Coronet" (landing on Honshu) depict only US corps-level invasion areas; neither inland objectives, scheme of maneuver or Japanese dispositions are depicted. The orders of battle in the appendix are very generic, listing only US corps and divisions, and no Japanese units are listed. Air units are ignored. The three US corps commanders for "Olympic," generals Schmidt, Hall and Swift, are never mentioned by name. This could have been a great book if he had discussed the units involved on both sides (eg. which units were veteran units and which were untried), the terrain (obstacles, key terrain, avenues of approach), the commanders on both sides, logistics, etc. and discussed the likely timelines of US progress using phase lines. However, the actual account of US invasion delivered by this limp account is overly generic and hence, virtually useless.