"Hell to pay: Operation Downfall and the invasion of Japan, 1945-1947" is a comprehensive and compelling examination of the many complex issues that encompassed the strategic plans for the proposed American invasion of Japan. U.S. planning for the invasion and military occupation of Imperial Japan was begun in 1943, two years before the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In its final form, Operation Downfall called for a massive Allied invasion-on a scale dwarfing D-Day-to be carried out in two stages. In the first stage, Operation Olympic, the U.S. Sixth Army would lead the assault on the southernmost Home Island of Kyu-shu preceded by the dropping of as many as nine atom bombs behind the landing beaches and troop concentrations further inland. Sixth Army would secure airfields and anchorages needed to launch the second stage, Operation Coronet, 500 miles to the north in 1946. The decisive Coronet invasion of the industrial heartland of Japan through the Tokyo Plain would be led by the Eighth Army, as well as the First Army, which had previously pummeled its way across France and Germany to defeat the Nazis. These facts are well known and have been recounted-with varying degrees of accuracy-in a variety of books and articles. A common theme in these works is their reliance on a relatively few declassified high-level planning documents. In contrast, "Hell to Pay" examines the invasion of Japan in light of the large body of Japanese and American operational and tactical planning documents unearthed by the author in both familiar and obscure archives, as well as postwar interrogations and reports that senior Japanese commanders and their staffs were ordered to produce for General MacArthur's headquarters. "Hell to Pay" brings the political and military ramifications of the enormous casualties and loss of material projected by both sides in the climactic struggle to bring the Pacific War to a conclusion through a brutal series of battles on Japanese soil. This groundbreaking history counters the revisionist interpretations questioning the rationale for the use of the atom bomb and shows that President Truman's decision was based on very real estimates of the truly horrific cost of a conventional invasion of Japan.

Unabridged. This audiobook is encoded in MP3 format and will only play on CD players that are MP3 compatible.

Foreword: "three Colonels" / Stanley Weintraub -- The maximum "bloodletting and delay" -- Spinning the casualties -- The First Army and Kwantung redeployments -- The Pacific build-up and Berlin decision -- "Not a recipe for victory " -- The decision -- Japanese defense plans -- "Victory might be salvaged" -- The "manpower box" -- Mistakes and misperceptions -- What is defeat? -- The amphibious operation -- On the ground -- Unexamined factors -- A "target-rich environment" -- Half a million Purple Hearts -- "Punishment from heaven" -- Appendix A: G-2 estimate of enemy situation on Kyushu, U.S. Sixth Army, August 1, 1945 -- Appendix B: G-2 analysis of Japanese plans for the defense of Kyushu, U.S. Sixth Army, December 31, 1945 -- Appendix C: proclamation defining terms for Japanese surrender issued at Potsdam, July 26, 1945 (Potsdam Declaration) -- Appendix D: extract from a letter written by James Michener, October 20, 1995.