Operation Downfall: The planned invasions of Japan, 1945-1946

Operation Downfall was the overall code-name assigned to the two planned invasions of the Japanese home islands: Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, scheduled for 1 November 1945 (X-Day); and Operation Coronet, the subsequent landings in Tokyo Bay, in the spring of 1946. Earlier in the war, preliminary British studies had suggested that any such invasion would be impractical until 1947-1948 – but at the First Quebec Conference, on 17-24 August 1943, Allied leaders agreed that it should be scheduled for 1945-1946. The US Navy (USN) maintained, however, that there was no need for an invasion, which would risk heavy Allied casualties, and that Japan could be defeated instead by a na