Plan to wipe out Japanese defenders with B-29 Filled Poison Gas Bombs prior to Home Island invasion

The goal for the WWII planned invasion of Japan home islands was to conduct the invasion at minimum US causalities. A plan was developed to saturate the landing beaches with Mustard blistering agent prior to the invasion. This would wound or kill many of the Japanese defenders. This video will review the plan tactics and resources the US envisioned in plan execution. Dropping of the atomic bombs and subsequent surrender rendered the plan mute.

[@PitFriend1]

I had read that there was 144,000 TONS of mustard gas stockpiled in Hawai’i for use against the Japanese island of Kyushu during Operation Olympic. This was to have been used against cities as the wooden building would absorb the liquid and would be impossible to decontaminate. It’s scary to think that using atomic bombs was considered more humane that what would have happened.

[@Legitpenguins99]

Wait, what? I don't see what advantage forever contaminating a city would hold. That would be impossible to occupy when the war was over.

[@PitFriend1]

@@Legitpenguins99 They weren’t planning to occupy cities on Kyushu. The invasion of that island was simply intended to be a jumping off point for invading the rest of the islands. Airfields would be built and defenses put in place to draw in Japanese troops away from defending the other islands. Since the civilian population was expected to resist the invasion gassing the cities was intended to remove them and prevent the cities from becoming strongpoints for the defenders. Quite literally a ground invasion of the Japanese home islands would have been a genocide.

[@Legitpenguins99]

Interesting. It infuriates me to no end when people virtue signal about how "testing" the bomb on innocent civilians is sooo evil and it was the Soviets that made the Japanese surrender. Like bitch, how the hell would Trumen know that the Japanese would even surrender if the Soviets invade? Sorry I got offtrack, I guess my point is that deleting 2 cities was the right choice and ironically the most humanitarian decision.

[@johnharker7194]

The US wasn't really waging a war of conquest. We ended up spending a ton of money rebuilding Japan after the war. And they proceeded to eat our lunch economically in the 70s and 80s. This isn't to say we were being benevolent or anything. But America doesn't benefit from war like the empires of old. A very small group of people profit from American military action.

[@kimmoj2570]

US brought chemical weapons with them, even without having serious intent to use them. They were there for instant and overwhelming revenge if enemy first use. Remember Bari in 1943. Liberty ship carrying Mustard ammunition was sunken by Luftwaffe in middle of Bari, in Italy, harbour, and over 600 Allied and civilian personnel were hospitalized by horrible injuries. Almost 100 died. The lucky ones.

[@stevenbartlett5867]

This was a great piece of information. Thank you

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

There were some US military planners who considered using the 10 atom bombs available November 1st tactically ahead of the invasion, with US troops occupying that wasted land just days later. It shows mainly how ignorant almost everybody was about radiation and fallout.

[@Billy_Bad_Ass]

Considering that we didn't have 10 atom bombs, their ignorance must have been quite profound...

[@orbitalair2103]

Same with this mustard gas, our troops would have had to operate in full protective gear and masks with the same resulting decline in combat effectiveness. And you would never know if you decontaminated everything sufficiently.

[@gotanon9659]

Except that they know the effects of radiation is already very well known

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

@@gotanon9659No they did not. There were shoe stores with X-ray machines to show foot bones. And the very fact that those planners wanted to send troops into fallout zones shows they didn't know. Don't apply your modern knowledge to 80 years ago.

[@williamromine5715]

Actually, there were no more A bombs available at the time. I don't know if 10 more bombs could have been built by November, but I don't think so.

[@1977Yakko]

A horrifying what if made all the more compelling considering how horrible firebombing and nukes already were. As for justified or not, when those thousands of surplus Purple Heart medals that were made in anticipation for the invasion of Japan are being handed out, it'd be hard not to cast your objections aside and use them to save your men.

[@tacticlol]

I don’t agree with this. Japan was entirely blockaded by the end. There was arguably no reason to invade. They were trapped on an archipelago with basically no oil, so they were stuck there. Also just because there were plans to invade, does not mean they were going to invade. It might have been more politically expedient to put a wall around Japan, or to just keep bombarding them from the land and sea.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@tacticlol Japan had over a million troops still in China. While Japan did not have oil. It had a lot of coal and it had the technology to synthesis fuel and oils from it. In a prolonged siege, the Japanese could have adapted their industry to dispersed "cottages" that would be immune to bombing. They would have refined their kamikaze and remote missile technology for anti aircraft and anti-ship use. It would have made maintaining an indefinite blockade very expensive in blood as well as money. This would stiffen the resolve of the Japanese to resist, because they would see this as cowardice and they would never capitulate. It was only by completely defeating them in a "fair fight" did they accept it and submit. Your contemporary attitude is how the US got 30 years of intermittent war in Iraq. How did that work out?

[@tacticlol]

@@obsidianjane4413 what makes you think they needed a “fair fight”? They literally surrendered without an invasion. They knew they were done and negotiated a surrender. It probably would have happened even without the A bombs.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@tacticlol No it did not. Stay in school and learn about Japanese culture.

[@gotanon9659]

​@@tacticlol Read more bud. Japan was going to fight till the end even with the atomic bombing the Japanese Mil and Civil was ready to fight and were unwilling to see anyother option. It the DIRECT Order of from the emperor for them to surrender and mind you the Jap Military actively hindered that annoucement from being brodcasted to the public...

[@JeffBilkins]

I think it is notable they planned to use lingering mustard gas instead of faster dissipating phosgene as an attack gas, considering the US troops had to move through the area later.

[@WilliamHarbert69]

Another great presentation. Thank you.

[@leogazebo5290]

Thank you for this wonderful topic, I was just researching for possible scenarios to make an alternate history of no hold barred scenario for operation downfall and your videos are giving me ideas. Keep it up, your keeping history accessible for everyone.

[@tokencivilian8507]

Interesting and sobering historical information from those period sources.

[@Milkmans_Son]

Less cruel? Holy crap.

[@obsidianjane4413]

War is heck.

[@otm646]

If the other options are flamethrowers or phosphorus, that's a legitimate argument. I hope you don't have the experience to understand what the effects of either of those are like. Never mind the chemical weapons.

[@Milkmans_Son]

@@otm646 15 years ago last month I had 2nd and 3rd degree burns covering 20-25% of my skin from a chemical fire and I also had the pleasure of walking right into a cloud of sulfur dioxide gas about 5 years before that, do these count? Either way, I think any argument that says gas is more more humane is a tough one to make. I mean, if Hitler didn't use it.... (on the battlefield anyway)

[@stejer211]

@@Milkmans_Son Is your name Wile E. Coyote, by any chance?

[@Milkmans_Son]

@@stejer211 No, but my business cards say GENIUS, so we have at least two things in common....

[@Snarkbar]

Those are some shockingly high numbers of people opposed to the use of poison gas, even that deep into a grueling war.

[@as65801]

They remember WW1

[@randomnickify]

Because they realized the enemy will respond with the same thing?

[@SamBrickell]

@@randomnickify You might be right that that was those people's concern. But it's fairly unrealistic to expect that the 1945 version of Japan would have been capable of responding in kind.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@randomnickify No. It was simply the trauma of WWI that created the public opinion that chemical weapons were taboo. Mainly because they produce large numbers of permanently disabled casualties compared to conventional combat which is far more lethal.

[@dfirth224]

@@as65801 Both of my grandfathers were WWI veterans. One would blame the mustard gas every time he had a coughing fit.

[@andrewpizzino2514]

New subscriber. Very interesting info on the war with Japan

[@stejer211]

Gruesome facts, great channel! Subscribed and binging.

[@WagesOfDestruction]

In 1944, during the Battle of Hengyang in China, Japanese forces deployed a significant number of gas shells containing mustard gas and lewisite against Chinese troops. These chemical weapons attacks were known to the US, and the US had been investigated by a United States Army Chemical Warfare officer. The U.S. could have potentially used this as justification to employ gas weapons of its own during World War II as the Japanese had used them first.

[@ddegn]

Do you recall where you learned this information? I'm questioning its true, it just seems like this is pretty serious and it's odd I hadn't heard of it before.

[@WagesOfDestruction]

@@ddegn Do a web search. There is plenty about it on the net, as the Battle of Hengyang is considered one of the major battles. Books and movies have been made about this battle.

[@Steve-GM0HUU]

There is certainly plenty of online references to this. Though, I don't know if the US "First Use" policy meant use against US forces or citizens.

[@primafacie9721]

The Japanese Unit 731 for Biological and Chemical development was weaponizing diseases and developing their own inhumane weapons and only stopped after their surrender. The military had formed civilian units to be armed with any weapon, including bamboo spears to be sacrificed against American artillery, machine guns, armor, and air support. It was have been a slaughter on an unseen scale. The Japanese were starving to death hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war and their army was still killing Chinese in China. Any weapon that forced them to surrender before the invasion saved many more times Japanese than the weapons inflicted.

[@kevinyaucheekin1319]

Quite probably true.

[@PositionLight]

Greg's Aeroplanes channel occasionally references how P-47's were equipped with a "chemical spray" feature on their bomb arming panel and how this was part of the allied plan to just saturate large parts of the home islands with Mustard Gas. These plans never get much play in the whole atom bomb debate.

[@dukecraig2402]

You're a little confused, the only "spray" switch in a P47 is for the water injection. You can't fly around over an area spraying chemical weapons like that, there's a reason why they're always delivered in bomb and artillery shell's, first off you'd be putting the pilot in grave danger trying to do that, and unless you planned on overflying everywhere you wanted to disperse the gas right on the deck at speeds under 150 knots or so, like crop dusters do, it wouldn't work because of the gas being dispersed too much by the wind to be effective, and having aircraft flying all over the place that slow right on the deck would be a death sentence in itself for the pilots, nobody in the USAAF in WW2 would have even suggested something like that, there's an entire laundry list of reasons why it wouldn't work and is why nobody has ever tried dispersing chemical weapons that way. You've completely misremembered or misunderstood some things about his videos.

[@jasonkrantz3643]

⁠@@dukecraig2402 No, @positionlight has not misremembered, and you’re the one who has misunderstood. Greg recounts this at the 56-minute mark in the linked video below, and cites his source. The P-47 could be fitted with dispensers for “smoke, tear gas, etc.” and Greg speculates that this was likely cover for spraying mustard gas to depopulate the Japanese home islands. Whether Greg’s speculation is right or not is a separate question, of course. Ambrose Bierce once said that “to be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one’s lungs.” Please do your homework before excoriating others. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hX_PmaWaf9SXpcksi=fIQ1875QlXF7DgOq

[@jeraldsamuel5598]

Didn't WW 2 aircraft sometimes dispense smoke screens from low level????​@@dukecraig2402

[@dukecraig2402]

@@jasonkrantz3643 Yea well Greg missed big on that one then, you can't disperse mustard gas like that, conditions have to be favorable in the first place much less trying to spray it from an aircraft like that, CS gas yea, that might work because it's only an irritant but mustard gas poses so many problems trying to do it that way including having to put the pilot in a chemical suit with a gas mask for his own safety, along with having to fly around on the deck as I mentioned, dispersing mustard gas from an airplane wouldn't work like in a James Bond movie, it has to be concentrated enough to be effective and spraying it from an aircraft at any kind of altitude and speed wouldn't work, it's a hair brained idea that anyone whose ever been in the military and trained on chemical weapons knows wouldn't work.

[@charleshaggard4341]

@@dukecraig2402 May have watched Goldfinger when the flying ladies dispersed poison gas from the Cessna 182s.

[@eddavis1832]

Great information! Would be interested in a video which details total stockpile of gas bombs, their storage and proposed deployment, plus eventual neutralization. Thanks!!!

[@rayschoch5882]

This is an eye-opening bit of history, particularly for WW 2 buffs. My dad flew a combat tour in an F6F with VF-19 during the Philippine operation, then spent most of 1945 training in the F4U-4 with VBF-150 in preparation for the invasion of Japan. They likely would have been flying a lot of ground support missions. I can't help but wonder how he might have explained / justified the use of poison gas had Japanese leaders not (finally) come to their senses when they did to bring the war to an end.

[@obsidianjane4413]

His generation did not have a problem with it.

[@ragtowne]

My father was a staff sergeant medic stationed at McCord AAF in 1945 to be part of the invasion of mainland Japan he told me stories about training with poison gas (he called it “mustard gas“). I’m convinced it had a deleterious effect on him as he had severe health problems later in life including various cancers which his sister, brother and parents did not suffer from.

[@obsidianjane4413]

He would not have trained "with" the poison gas because.... its poison. Esp. not as a medic. In the 50s and 60s there were plenty of carcinogenic chemicals in common industrial use that were far worse than mustard gas.

[@dfirth224]

Mustard gas and chlorine gas were the two commonly used gas weapons in WWI. First used in 1914, it caught the Canadians unprepared with no gas masks. One of the filter media used in the gas masks found a new use after the war, Kleenex tissue.

[@SerenityMae11]

@dfirth Is that true? Kleenex used to be a filter media in gas masks?

[@ragtowne]

@@dfirth224 that’s interesting I’d like to know more

[@steveturner3999]

I've read in the past that multiple Pacific islands were ideal candidates for gas attack using naval bombardment. When proposed they were not approved by order of FDR.

[@amerigo88]

This video fails to mention the primary danger from mustard gas is to the lungs as inhaling it will blister the inner lining of the lungs and cause the victim to drown. When I was in the US Army we practiced for gas warfare frequently and had to be ready to don our gas mask in seconds as it was our main protection. Gas warfare gives a major edge to the side with better logistics. That side will have better equipment for moving through a contaminated area and for decontamination of troops and equipment. Obviously, this would have been the Americans and British forces in Kyushu and Honshu.

[@williambinkley8879]

Makes me think about the chemical warfare drills we did in the Navy during the 80s and 90s. Of course the weapons we were preparing for would make mustard gas look like the condiments it named for

[@matthewmulbrandon6965]

If you look at the topology the gas would go down into the valleys. The US would be dealing with a contaminated starting ground with the Japanese sitting high in their caves. Nukes were the only short cut and they would hurt your troops as well.

[@ZIGZAGBureauofInvestigation]

It was Made in Denver and Stored in Pueblo....

[@iroll]

Among other places.

[@Rayman1971]

I'm certain the Japanese would respond with chem/bio weapons of their own on US troops, if they were hit with anything like that...

[@dfirth224]

They used chemical and biological weapons against the Chinese starting in 1931.

[@eddieslittlestack7919]

I'm not so convinced. Sure, they'd have no moral obligation to using them but the Japanese logistics that late in the war...

[@1dedrer]

Seems to be a fair use weapon if the enemy is obviously beaten but their command won’t surrender. Same as using a nuke. If the enemy can’t retaliate with the same weapons then everyone knows they have to surrender or die. Still opposed to its use in early or mid war because then too many casualties on both sides not to mention civilian casualties.

[@obsidianjane4413]

If the atom bomb hadn't of worked, they probably would have used it if (when) Japanese resistance didn't collapse after then initial landings.

[@malcolmlewis5860]

The Japanese were trying to surrender via neutral USSR mediation. The Allies knew this as the codes were cracked and the instructions to the diplomats were known to the USA.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@malcolmlewis5860 The Japanese were trying to get a conditional deal. Ie: escape justice for themselves and remaining in power.

[@dukecraig2402]

Didn't you cover this already a while back? I can swear I remember a video from you about US plans involving B29's and poison gas on Japan. Do some videos on medium US bombers, hardly anyone ever covers those especially with the accuracy you'd do them with, there's probably a whole bunch of myths about them that you could straighten out.

[@stephenbritton9297]

It's hard to say if gas or radiation is more cruel. Certainly, many of the atomic weapon's casualties never knew they were dead until they suddenly met their ancestors, whereas almost all gas victims suffer for some time (even more deadly agents don't kill immediately.)

[@markstott6689]

No. Never.

[@Godvana_]

I have a question: why do some US bombers, especially the B-25 and B-26, have so many forward facing guns? If they are supposed to be bombers, surely it would be better to not have all that extra weight slowing them down.

[@randomnickify]

Most of the fighters come from the front. As for smaller bombers, strafing enemy positions is a thing,

[@dennisfox8673]

In the southwest pacific there weren’t a lot of big concentrated targets for bombers to attack conventionally. An absolute hail of 50 cal could destroy most of the targets, and it was a lot easier to hit things like barges or individual planes parked at an airfield with guns than conventional bombs. When attacking bases or airfields they did use large amounts of small, parachute slowed, fragmentation bombs. The focus was on creating a blizzard of fragments as opposed to battering them with concussions from high explosives. Look into Gen. George Kenney and the 5th Air Force and especially “Pappy” Gunn-he cooked up a lot of those innovations.

[@Ensign_Nemo]

The Axis fighters that opposed bombers, especially heavy bombers over Europe, would often attack them from the front because the combined speeds of the two aircraft made the encounter much more brief, and the targeted bomber often was more vulnerable from the front. The bombers didn't have enough time to respond effectively. The B-17 had a 'chin' gun facing forward added to later models to respond to this threat. Smaller two-engine bombers would strafe targets as they dropped bombs, which was especially effective in the Pacific theater against Japanese ships.

[@matthew____879]

The guns were used to suppress AAA during low level attacks, I recommend reading the Saga of Pappy Gunn if you are interested in the development of this system.

[@obsidianjane4413]

Medium bombers were more like ground attack aircraft. The guns were for strafing ground targets. No the were not for defending against enemy fighters or AAA, unless they just happened to blunder in front of them.

[@WarHammer1911A1]

What do you tell Japan with two mushroom clouds? Nothing, you already dun told'em twice.

[@Roddy556]

I wonder how people would have felt if Japan had surrendered with just the threat of the bombs or a demonstration. As heavy handed as atomic weapons are I feel it left a sense of evenness to the end of the war, as in people could feel the aggressors didn't get off easy.

[@bartonstano9327]

Dr. Jordan Peterson says near the end of wars the people and leaders come to a horrible motive: I am so fed up with the deaths and the killing, I just want the killing to stop, and I do not care how this is done. So in 1945 if I was a US commander and no A-bomb existed you bet I would want gas. Please remember the mindset of the US people in 1945. We may not agree with it today, but I argue that we have it easy, we are not everyday losing a lot of young men in a war.

[@Milkmans_Son]

But on the other hand Peterson, like us, cannot relate to a perspective that includes chemical warfare being a thing during our lifetimes....

[@bartonstano9327]

@@Milkmans_Son True enough sir. But in point of fact in my lifetime the USSR used biochemical [yellow rain] in Afghanistan; also in Syria more recently. Chemical warfare is still done, just not very often.

[@obsidianjane4413]

Peterson is a psycho-charlatan not a historian nor a political scientist. That was not the mindset of the US people in 1945. The US was visibly winning. Populations only grow tired of war when there seems to be no progress or they are losing. The US considered gas only because of the experience with fanatical Japanese resistance. It would have taken a lot for them to reconsider the prohibition on it.

[@gregp6210]

As noted in the last shown document, the Japanese defenses were all on the beaches because their government could not survive the permanent conquest of any main Japanese territory, and once the Americans landed and took ground we never left. So the Japanese defenses were thin on the unrealistic gamble that the super massive invasion could be repulsed on the beaches in a few days, they had no in depth defense like they had at Iwo and Okinawa. It was therefore likely that the assault of Kyushu would have been successful more quickly than often thought since the Japanese had no Plan-B, and the final surrender would have been rapid. Don't believe the nonsense that they were going to deploy millions of civilians as soldiers. What army would do that? No way to transport, feed, water or properly arm and train them. They would have been moved down by semi-auto and automatic fire. In any case the Soviet attack on Japanese forces in August completely unhinged the already nonviable Japanese war strategy, and they had to surrender immediately to avoid occupation by Stalin of part of Japan and the emperor being put on trial. The nukes did not help matters for Japan. So the surrender was going to occur by Sept one way or another.

[@obsidianjane4413]

Nothing you wrote here is true.

[@gregp6210]

@@obsidianjane4413 Au contraire, tis you who are lying. The last document in this podcast goes at lengths to describe the Japanese strategy as a beach defense because any permanent beachhead could not be eliminated -- never happened to Allied forces in the war -- and that would mean the end of the J government. There was no serious effort to establish formal inland defenses. And postwar analysis found that the beach defenses were far behind schedule (as they were on Normandy) because the J military lacked the resources and manpower. Because as this podcast has shown the B-29 mining project, subs, and aerial attacks on rail had pretty much shut down J transportation. And they were short of weapons and ammo. As shown on this podcast, the nukes (10 urban sq miles flattened) had a minor effect compared to the far more extensive firebombings (100 sq miles) and mining campaigns. The surprise Soviet attack horrified the J government because they had no ability to do anything about it, and they knew the Russkies would demand joint occupation of Japan as per Germany if they continued to battle the USSR, USA and UK all by there lonesomes, so they decided to opt for the Yanks alone, knowing that Mac would save Hirohito from the criminal charges he was vulnerable to. I sort of doubt obsidian can back up her claims with any actual arguments.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@gregp6210 Your "claims" here are total speculation and mostly completely wrong. Again. The Japanese intended to repeat the same strategy as in Okinawa. They were completely prepared, and had prepared the civilian population to commit mass suicide attacks against not only the beach landings but as far inland as they could maintain control. This was mainly to make the cost so high that the US would settle for a conditional peace. The Soviets were not a factor. They were only a reluctant intermediary. The Soviet "invasion" of Manchuria was less of threat to Japanese possessions than the British and Chinese advances in the same time period. Your "opinion" here is delustionally revisionist. Aping Hasegawa's false claim that it was the Soviets who "won the war".

[@UAuaUAuaUA]

You are correct. Compare the German defense of Normandy with the same around 600k soldiers for Kyushu helps to understand it. As Kyushu would get no supplies, and Japan had no tanks and very few artillery left, this could not be compared with other locations like Okinawa. Reading Japanese soldiers memoirs also helps, as the situation was desperate by the summer of 1945. No gasoline, no rice, no guns and no shoes is what they got. The Germans deployed 2000 tanks, good fortifications built over three years in Normandy, and lost it in two months. The organized defense of Kyushu would have lasted for around two weeks.

[@gregp6210]

@@UAuaUAuaUA Interesting note. As explained in Jame's Holland's The Dam Busters, after the bouncing bombs took out the two Ruhr damns in May 43 the Germans had to get them repaired before winter to refill the reservoirs. To do that required a few thousand slave laborers. Germany was labor short so they pulled the men off the Normandy defenses, and were not returned until the winter. That was why when Rommel inspected the defensive infrastructure at that time he was aghast to see it barely existed, and it never got to where it was supposed to be. Not that it mattered, since of course the invasion was going to be led by Patton to the east at Calais;)

[@TallDude73]

I know it's not the main point of the video, but at 10:08 there's an implication the war ended because of the atomic bombs being dropped. That's arguable, and it was likely the Russian invasion of Manchuria that was the main driver for the surrender.

[@obsidianjane4413]

You are still wrong.

[@Minimouse580]

@@obsidianjane4413 Obviously the atomic bombs left an impression, but that impression was left by the Red Army with its invasion. Some parts of the Japanese army didn't even want to surrender afterwards. You can see, that's how war works.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@Minimouse580 Yes, Russians moving into a thinly held garrison in a far away territory is far more impressive than having your home cities vaporized by a single bomb. lol @ moron.

[@amerigo88]

The Soviets had almost no navy, no aircraft carriers, few amphibious attack resources, and no strategic bombers. Exactly why were they a threat to mainland Japan? It's almost as if the Soviet military was built to defeat Germany (or any continental power) and the American military in the Pacific was built to defeat an island- centric power.

[@keithmoore5306]

with what we know today about their wartime and prewar activities they forfeited any and all expectations of being treated as civilized or receiving any mercy!! unit 731 alone justified using any and all weapons available and on more than the military!! they should have never been allowed to anything more than an asian amish population after the surrender especially seeing how the Germans who made an effort to make amends get treated today!!

[@jeraldsamuel5598]

I don't know about the 2nd WW but I'm MYSTIFIED why USA didn't resort to chemical warfare in Korean War when CHINA decided to intervene with its limitless HORDES!!!!

[@obsidianjane4413]

Because China didn't send "limitless HORDES!!!!", and using chemical or atomic weapons on China would most likely cause the Soviets to retaliate, either by providing them to China, using them itself either in the region or in Europe. Truman did not want to firmly set the precedent that nuclear weapons could be used "casually" for tactical gain. Because otherwise, our world today would suck much greaterly. Go read some books and don't get your info from UToob.

[@rags417]

Typical American analysis. part from being inhumane, cruel and effectively a war crime absolutely zero consideration was given to what the Japanese would have done in response. Sure, gas Kyushu and land four days later unopposed. Shortly after that Baka bombs and kamikazes loaded with mustard and nerve agents start raining down on the beaches and ships parked offshore. The Crossroads tests in 1946 showed that the biggest issue from nuclear explosion was not the flash or blast but the near impossibility of obtaining 100% complete decontamination afterwards. Troops packed tightly on the beach relying upon a constant flow of men and materials would be a LOT more vulnerable then a dispersed enemy hiding in small groups in the hills. And the US wonders why the rest of the world hates them.

[@mattwilliams3456]

Fools like you seem to feel the need to advertise yourselves so vigorously. By the time Olympic was to be launched the Japanese would have been fortunate to get single digit percentages of anything they launched within range of the invasion beaches. And it turns out that the side which initiates the use of chemical weapons tends to be prepared for them on the battlefield. Allied soldiers would be prepared and expecting to encounter contamination and any retaliatory measures.

[@obsidianjane4413]

You've got issues.

[@markmclaughlin2690]

Nothing should have been off the table, the Nips had what they had coming