Week 305 - Operation Olympic - 100,000 US Casualties in 60 days? - WW2 - June 29, 1945

The casualty projections for the planned November invasion of Kyushu, Japan are in... or are they? They might have been 'massaged' a little to sell the operation more easily. The fight in the field still goes on, though, with parachutes flying over Luzon as more American troops land, and an Australian advance on Borneo.

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Hosted by: Indy Neidel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Marek Kamiński
Community Management: Jake McCluskey
Written by: Indy Neidell
Research by: Indy Neidell
Map animations by: Daniel Weiss
Map research by: Sietse Kenter
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Artwork and color grading by: Mikołaj Uchman
Sound design by: Marek Kamiński
Colorizations by:
Mikołaj Uchman
Daniel Weiss
Dememorabilia

Image sources:
Naval History and Heritage Command
National Archives NARA

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
Dark Beginning - Johan Hynynen
Deviation In Time - Johannes Bornlof
Disciples of Sun Tzu - Christian Andersen
Last Point of Safe Return - Fabien Tell
Leave It All Here - Fabien Tell
Leave It All Here - Fabien Tell
Rememberance - Fabien Tell
The Inspector 4 - Johannes Bornlöf

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

[gunman]

A rather interesting sidenote this week on June 26 1945 is that Prime Minister of South Africa Jan Smuts will become the only person to have signed the documents forming the League of Nations and the United Nations when he affixed his signature to the United Nations Charter at San Francisco, California, in the United States.

[cheesedetectiverook]

Ah, Borneo. The last days of my great grandfather in the war. He had truly seen so much of the world during the war. From the deceptively cold desert nights in North Africa, to the most tenacious of the Japanese in the Pacific. Just a few more days and he and his mates get to finally enjoy some proper rest

[ethanbramptom]

It’s pretty surreal to me how, after years of the episodes growing in length as the war grew in size, they are now getting shorter as the war is winding down.

[maynardcarmer]

An uncle of mine was killed, and buried at sea, on 25 June 1945. So close, and yet too far away.

[ives]

"War's tragedy is that it uses man's best to do man's worst." - Harry Emerson Fosdick

[elbeto]

"Mr. Prima Donna, Brass Hat, Five Star MacArthur" . Well... nothing more to say, right?

[professorsogol]

The assessment of Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew should be given serious consideration. He was the US Ambassador to Japan from 1932 to 1942 and observed the principal players in the Japanese leadership closely for ten years. He probably knew more about Japan, its leadership and culture than anyone else in Washington.

[JustSomeCanuck]

Tension between Truman and MacArthur? Oh well, at least Indy won't need to discuss that in any other channels!

😉😉

[johnhemphill]

My father was apart of a bomber crew in France, after Germany surrendered they ended up going to Okinawa. A lot of planes were arriving there back then. Amazing you all covered this.

[matthewmcmacken]

Marshall to MacArther: 'These are not the casualty numbers you are looking for...'

[jaimepatena]

My father was Filipino American and was in the US Army Signal Corp. on Adak island in the Aleutians in the summer of 1945. My father said he was personally happy when the Japanese surrendered. He had heard about the massive casualties that were projected.

[bugger]

I think we've been spoilt in the last few months, I was so used to 20+ mins videos that i'm surprised that this one is "short" at 16 odd minutes. Keep up the good work!

[JLAvey]

One item I came across years ago really put in perspective the magnitude of the blood bath. The invasion plan has one of the Marines' activities planned out for five days on account that the regiment was expected to be destroyed by the sixth. Not necessarily dead, just enough casualties to reduce it to battalion or company strength.

[UncleJoeLITE]

Fell asleep waiting for the premiere again. Such is life in the Canberra/Tokyo time zone!

[dariuszgaat]

On the occasion of the fights for northern Borneo, I recommend the quite forgotten but quite good film "Farewell to the King" with Nick Nolte, loosely telling the story of these events.

[porksterbob]

I hope we get some stuff about the Japanese preparations on Kyushu.

They are successful in guessing most of the invasion plan and they end up putting a lot more forces there then the US expected. This all become clear by mid July and suddenly every casualty estimate talked about in this episode looks low.

[Turf-yjei]

It's weird seeing episodes under 20 minutes. You can tell things are winding down. Well on to Korea gents

[andmos]

In context, the Purple Hearts that was produced in preparation for Operation Olympic, has only recently begun producing again

[LugborG]

Tell Indy he's the David Attenborough of war documentary. I don't think I could imagine a different voice (or vest) doing these.

[briantarigan]

the differing opinion about the status of Japan is fascinating, the fact that a person as high ranking as William Leahy doubt the the cost of forcing Japan to an unconditional surrender and try to make his colleagues look at another peace alternative while at the same also oppose the occupation of Japan and even Truman kinda keep the question open to the congress for alternative is very interesting, there was so much doubt before the guaranteed soviet invasion and atomic bomb being tested