Reply #191: Look at the history of island invasions leading up to Japan- Iwo Jima

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was the first time the Japanese had large prepared fortifications and an extensive tunnel system. The island is 8 sq. miles in area and contained over 800 Japanese fortified positions. It was prepared with 10 weeks of bombine by US land based bombers, the heaviest of the war to date. The Marines landed a total of 70,000 troops, lost 4189 killed, 441 missing, 15308 wounded.
Japan started with over 27,000 troops, final # of captured was 1,083 (2 more surrendered in 1951, 6 years ater the end of WWII). US had underestimated their casualt rate by 80% - over 1/3 of all Marines landed were casualties.
This led to changes in US tactics for the invasion of Okinawa, which lasted 82 days and saw 12,000 US killed, but over 107,000 Japanese and Okiniwan troops killed, plus over 100,000 civilians killed, many by the Japanese themselves.

Invading Japan's Home Islands would have been many times worse, especially in the numbers of civilians killed.

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