Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me, Saul David.

Today, a popular request, I'm talking to historian Rob Lyman about Operation Downfall,

the mission to conquer and pacify Japan within 18 months of the final defeat of Germany.

Rob, a regular on the podcast, is the author of a number of fine books on the war in the east,

including Slim Master of War and, more recently, a War of Empires.

Rob, welcome back.

It's great to you, Bexel.

Thank you very much for having me.

Now, today inevitably is very much a counterfactual discussion, or at least some of it will be,

because Operation Downfall was never needed.

But the detail of the plans, I think, is quite instructive, particularly when we consider the decision to use

the atomic bombs to end the war in August 945. So let's go back to the beginning, shall we,

and consider an early version of the plan that was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Planning Team in Washington and presented to Churchill and Roosevelt at the Argonaut Conference on Malta

in February 1945. This was, of course, a two-part plan, Rob. Tell us a little bit about it and what

the separate forces were hoping to achieve in these operations. Well, it actually began a little bit

before then, because actually at the

Quebec conference in 1943, the whole issue was raised and a plan was presented to Churchill and

Roosevelt that wasn't regarded to be sufficiently comprehensive because I think that what in

1943 had become absolutely apparent to everybody fighting the Japanese

was that to defeat the Japanese in totality would require the occupation of the home island.

Now, this is a really, really significant challenge for the Allies.

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