Harry Truman Operation Downfall

Harry Truman had to make one of the hardest decisions any President ever had to make. He had to decide whether or not to spare countless American lives at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Japanese and drop the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was his responsibility as the President to protect the US, but the death toll in Japan was so horrific that it really makes you wonder if it was worth the killing of all the innocent people, many of whom were women and children.

President Truman was unlike most presidents in the sense that he was not elected to be president, but came into office after Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a stroke on April 12th, 1945. He told reporters that it was as if “The moon, the stars, and all the planets had all fallen on me.” But his concern was
Before July of 1945, the atomic bomb had never even been tested before, but the allies saw that the collapse of Japan was near. They came up with Operation Downfall, which was the planned invasion of Japan. It was Divided into two parts, Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. The Americans planned on landing in Kyushu fist, and then using it as a base for their planes, which were to be used to support the landings in Kanto. Unfortunately the Japanese realized as early as the year before that there were few places that could be used for a landing place, so they knew that if an invasion were to take place it would most likely take place on the beaches of Kyushu and Kanto because both could handle a huge amphibious landing. The Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that just Operation Olympic would cost about 456,000 men, with 109,000 deaths. Operation Coronet would experience 1.2 million casualties, with 267,000 deaths. No matter which figures are used, it is a fact that America would have suffered a catastrophic amount of deaths with even more