I'm glad I'm not the only one that caught that.

I agree. It opened my eyes to many important details. Two matters that I do not see covered are 1)nJust why Tominaga requested a second strike and 2) Why the runways on Eastern Island were not hit. I do not believe the Japanese could have missed them..

+kasrkinmullet HALF IN THE BAAAAAAG... and when squadron 2C struck the Shimabakuro, hundreds of men were instantly incinerated. Terrified aviators jumped into the water to escape death...

Midway (1976) is the worst thing since my son...

I know! For once, both me AND my brain noticed. :)

I thought about rlm and food wishes lol

same ^^

Yamamoto is the last name.

Or “family name” to clarify this.

velvet01able .

Without the Yorktown six fighters, without the fighters using the Thatch Weave, perhaps some of the Japanese fighters would have stayed high. Most of the Japanese fighters were dealing with Thatch’s fighters, and getting shot down in the process. Less than half of them were able to attack the Torpedo planes, though that was enough to shoot most of them down. But left nothing for providing high cover, which might at least have given the Japanese, particularly the Akagi, more warning, and interfered with the dive bombing attacks. If any fighters were able to stay up high, it’s hard to see how more than two Japanese carriers could have been sunk, and maybe not even that many. One Wildcat was no match for one Zero. But with the Thatch Weave, two Wildcats was a match for two or even more Zeros, with no effective counter tactic except for “Keep away from the Wildcats”. Jimmy Thatch was America’s greatest Aerial Tactician.

@@joeelliott2157 Those six fighters wound up finding a target more valuable than IJN carriers. They attacked their all important honor and pride. Genius indeed.

The operational picture got clearer for me when I learned for the first time that the Thatch weave made its debut just as the Japanese CAP failed to effectively intercept the US dive bombers. A bright and shiny object indeed, and tantalizingly close.

You obviously didn’t watch the video. He literally says this in the Q&A session.

They had a strategic plan....it was just wrong conclusions. They thought the US would negotiate at some point.

@@bclmax Yeah. And that was never going to happen after Pearl Harbor...

I have no idea what that means.....what does that mean?

@@BillMorganChannel the most important book i have ever read

@@bclmax Thank you for the reply. Do you believe in God? The Bible is a great book.

@@BillMorganChannel no

@@bclmax Could you please watch one of my debates vs atheists on my channel? I debated some of the world's most brilliant atheists and we had polite conversations. BCL..your eyes, ears, lungs, heart and toes are designs,,,great designs....there has to be a designer.....please check out my debates ok?

They had no effective CAP Controller. That, and the lack of radar on the carriers, was a fatal flaw. They had enough fighters up; but they were not in the right places. In Shattered Sword, Tully and Parshall talk about the continuous CAP from all carriers being the smoking gun that killed the Fuchida narrative. In addition, the continued attacks meant the carriers were turning sharply, preventing recovery, spotting, deck arming (for the dive bombers), and launching of full strike packages as was their operational doctrine. Spotting, launching, or recovering. Pick one.

@@thatguyinelnorte There is no way the IJN had enough fighters or even planes for that matter. It was 248 for the IJN and 360 for the US. Of the 248 attack planes for the IJN only 1/3 were fighters. So in total they had ~80 fighters planes. The exact breakdown I believe is as follows: 1. Kaga 74 total 21 fighters 2. Akagi 66 21 3. Hiryu 54 18 4. Soryu 54 18 It’s clearly obvious there were not enough planes. Not all could be in the air at the same time. Probably 50 at most engaging in battle while the other near 30 are either flying back to the carrier or rearming/refueling or taking back off to engage in battle. Since Kaga was the slowest and carried the most planes it’s possible she could have been kept back further west and load her with a plane mixture of: - 50 A6M fighters - 12 D3A dive - 12 B5N torpedo The draw back though is that each fighter plane from the Kaga would take a longer time in getting back into action. The OP IMO is on the right track. In reality all the carriers should have been loaded with more fighter planes. The ultimate destruction of the US carriers would have had to have come from the IJN surface ships. The primary job of the IJN bombers would be to “wound” the US carriers and slow them down. It’s up to the IJN fast vessels such as their cruisers and destroyers which could do 36 knots or so plus the Kongo class IJN battlecruisers which could do 30 knots to catch and ultimately sink the US carriers. So what should have happened is that certain surface ships be sent out ahead and the IJN carriers stay back on the initial attack of Midway. The fighter planes could easily catch up to the surface ship lead attack force to provide CAP. I also think you’re putting way too much emphasis on radar in 1942. It wasn’t that good and even the US had to still use scout planes to find and spot the enemy. With the right battle plan the IJN could have easily won Midway. It’s a head scratcher as to why they went with the plan they did.

@@f430ferrari5My experience is that the battleships were much slower than the carriers and that would have been the fatal flaw of sending them in first...they never could have caught the carriers...perhaps the cruisers and destroyers could, but not the lumbering, bumbling, stumbling battlewagons. I love Shattered Sword too!

Good thinking - but the mindset of the time did not allow for innovative thinking, by anybody.

@@thatguyinelnorte Great reply! But what do you think of my one carrier being dedicated to CAP so that the other carriers could launch bomber and torpedoes?

None of the Midway aircraft did any damage to the Japanese.

@@johnferguson7235 True. But this was the 1st time Kido Butai had had to fight off multiple attacks, one after the other. Granted, had the American attacks been even somewhat coordinated they could have inflicted at least a couple of hits. As it was, the incessant attacks kept Nagumo off balance and the constant cycling of CAP fighters kept the flight decks from being spotted. That, and an unwillingness to try and shove multi ton aircraft around on wildly maneuvering carrier kept Nagumo's strike force stuck in the hangars.

Good question. My biggest disappointment was that no audience member, in the question-and-answer period, asked about the recent “Flight to Nowhere” Theory about the Hornet Air Group heading off on a wild goose chase on course 265, instead of the proper 240 heading. My opinion, is that this scenario is nonsense. This is another one of those Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy Theories. The Hornet group were ordered on the wrong heading, on the off chance that there might be a couple of carriers off to the west. And as a result, missed the morning battle. And the one hundred of so aircrew who took part in this failed mission never complained, never told the other pilots in the Navy, whom they were in contact with on shore or when they chanced carriers, anything about this. And so, it remained a secret for over 40 years. But I would have loved to have heard Jonathan Parshall opinion about this.

Which myth?

@@BillMorganChannel I assume the myth that the Japanese counterstrike was on the verge of taking off when the American dive bombers struck. In truth, that still an hour or more away. Off course, it doesn’t matter because if the dive bomber attacks fail, there are no more American air attacks coming for several more hours at least and so the full big Japanese strike would take place. If the full air strike did take place, would all the American carriers have been sunk? Or would the weakness of Japanese reconnaissance have only caused the Yorktown and some escorting ships to have been sunk?

IIRC they were also re-arming with a different set of weapons. This change in armament took time and added to the overall re-fueling time.

They were being armed for the next Strike; plus , with Kido Butai being under near-continuous air attack, they had to keep cycling the CAP, thus no time to spot them on deck. Also, what you suggest is not, or ever was, part of Doctrine.

Hard to feel sorry for the buggers but you can see that some should have been re-armed and refuelled ASAP for immediate cover. Reminds me of the fool who lost one of ours coming home from Norway but he had Hurricanes on deck that would not have permitted full use of his own planes. They should have been dumped to save his ship but how could he know that? Yet he should have! An aircraft carrier with no flight plan is a submarine in waiting.

Carrier Operations IJN circa 1942 were set a certain way. Doctrine, is hard to go against. Plus, NO ONE had ever done that before. Nagumo wasn't much for original thinking, plus you can only launch, recover, or spot, at any one time. Until the air attacks thinned out, they had to keep cycling the CAP. THAT is the real significance of Torpedo 8 and 6's sacrifices

Many reasons. One of them is a refuelled plane orbiting around its carrier while the other planes are being readied would be short of gas by the time they are ready. or in case it doesn't wait for them will be massacred by the enemy's CAP. The other reason is doctrine: before the war you think long and hard about the best way to fight and once you have defined a doctrine then you procure weapons and equipement and you train personnel according to the requirements of the doctrine. Throwing the doctrine out the window in the middle of a battle is usually not a good idea since your weapons and equipment aren't designed for what you want to do and personnel isn't trained for the task thus resulting in confusuion and ineffuiciencies. Japanese doctrine was to launch big strikes even if at the expense of speed

Did you read Shattered Sword where Dr Parshall argues the invasion force would have been annihilated? Can you imagine the quandry of the carriers if the invasion failed?

Even if the Americans lost Midway (and Guadalcanal), Japan would still have lost the war. It is not just the enormous material and production resources (which have a great strategic influence - you're talking about a country which armed, trained and supplied men to fight on TWO Trans-Oceanic fronts AND delivered vital supplies from armaments to food and other essentials to her allies!) Japan miscalculated on the ONE thing that often makes a mark in conflict - the will to fight.

@@guhalakshmiratan5566 you won't see nothing like that again

Actually, they weren't. Midway did begin the attritional war that ground the Japanese to hamburger. After Midway the Japanese lost over 100 at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and about 140 at the Battle of Santa Cruz. To make matters worse, Japan's merchant fleet was utterly unable to provide enough transport to ship pilots back home for R&R and training billets to pass on their knowledge to new flyers. The Japanese aircrew had a bitter crack that "you can't get home unless you die".

sundiver137 if we think about though has the IJN bombers launched all it would have done is have more of their pilots killed at Midway. Yes they may have gotten Hornet sooner and maybe even damaged Enterprise. Who knows. In the end, Battle of Coral Sea should have told the IJN that this carrier and plane type fighting wasn’t a good long term approach. As you stated in the Solomons and Santa Cruz look at how much was lost. It’s amazing as to how stupid the IJN was related to this. The IJN needed to bring their battleships into the equation in any battle with the US. This failure cost them big time.

@@sundiver137 Agreed. Except the attrition of good Japanese aircrews did not start at Midway. It started at Pearl Harbor, where 8 per cent of the aircrews were lost. Even total victories result in some loses. They did not have nearly enough pilots in the training pipeline to replace the inevitable loses.

Peter Hill That assumes that he didn't crash in the direction that the carriers later traveled before being bombed. Likewise, he didn't claim to be within a few hundred yards - as long as he was within twenty miles or so (if not further) he could still see the Japanese carriers being bombed and burning. There is no reason to think that he was somehow lying (and, what possible reason would he have to do so?). If nothing else he couldn't have been too close or else the Japanese might have noticed and taken him prisoner (which would have led to his guaranteed execution since that's what the Japanese did with other captured fliers during the battle).

@lurking0death. There are those who have their head buried in the sand related to this. Before the west coast though after an IJN victory would have been a battle for a Hawaii if the US wanted to try and retain it. The US at best would have 2 main carriers Wasp and Saratoga. They could have had maybe 7 old battleships and 30 destroyers by Sep 1942. If the Us lost all these vessels then nothing is really left to protect the west coast. The US still had issues with their torpedos and lacked armor piercing bombs for their bombers. Some folks talk of Us production but all evidence shows that they didn’t really start pumping out vessels until 1944. We are still in 1942. I have yet to see anybody explain how the US could survive a Midway loss. Nobody has proven they they could and accordingly most don’t even want to talk about it.

@@f430ferrari5 and @lurking0death - the reason why nobody has really bothered to answer is because you two have no concept of logistics. First question - how the hell is the IJN going to make it to the US West Coast? Or more fantastically - Panama Canal? The Japanese Merchant Marine was never adequate to begin with and with successful American submarine attacks due to anemic IJN escort service, got worse as the war progressed. No point having big carriers and giant battleships if your tankers can't carry oil from the source to the fleet to be fueled. The IJN proposed invading Australia and got shot down in planning (because the Army wouldn't or couldn't commit the resources. That's the other thing - so you bombarded the West Coast or Panama - now what? You gonna invade? With what? Japanese Naval Doctrine was against fighting a naval battle against a land force. If you think the IJN had the capacity (i.e. logistics - fuel, munitions, crews) to bomb the West Coast of the USA or attack the Panama Canal.... I wouldn't mind considering smoking what you folks are on. Sounds like a good trip...

@@guhalakshmiratan5566 you’re so far off in your mindset it’s a complete joke. Always try to talk in a unrealistic setting to try and prove your false narrative. The IJN didn’t need to attack the US mainland to secure a peace treaty. Why are you also moving away from an IJN victory at Midway. That’s the starting point. Explain how the US gets out of 1942. You can’t. You’re stuck just like everyone else. Battle for Hawaii is looming in Sep 1942 and you need to explain in detail what the US does to stop the IJN. Remember. Japan now has Midway island.

The US west coast was a long, long way beyond Pearl Harbor - and land-based planes were there aplenty . . .

@@EllieMaes-Grandad there were no active combat ready airbases on the west coast in 1942. Please list or name them.

You did a lot of writing which equals nothing but semantics and is moot. "could of's" and "if's" did not occur at Midway. Japan had already been in hyper war making industrial capacity for years before the U.S. having been fighting with China since 1937 and entering WW2 in 1940 and also giving it way more experienced fighters and materials, where as the battle of Midway was only 6 months in for the U.S , coming into it with outdated ships and tactics. The 1943 war U.S. industrial capacity and resources is very much a relevant factor as a sleeping giant of industrial making epic proportions never before seen came alive after the pearl attack and the U.S.was catching up.

Bob Billings ha ha. Ridiculous. There are plenty of others coming up with their own what ifs that are not even relevant. What if Nagumo launched sooner. Discrepancies with Fuchida’s story which Parshall likes to focus on. What if the Us carriers were at Pearl. Code breaking. The Aleutians campaign what if it was canceled. What if the IJN brought Zuikaku What if the Us pilots didn’t spot the Arashi destroyer. On and on and on. It seems you don’t like the what if I proposed because it’s actually the most important what if scenario which most folks like to try and bury. You can’t move out of 1942. The US was lacking many vessels. The win at Midway bought the Us valuable time. 1943 wasn’t a deal breaker either. It was only in mid 1944 where the Us really started to crank up production but this was well known even to Japan. They knew things had to be settled by end of 1942 or early 1943 at best. A Midway loss for the US would have been devastating. There doesn’t appear to be a way out of 1942 for the Us. Remember the IJN got Russia to a peace treaty. That’s all they were aiming for with the US.

@@f430ferrari5 You assume the Japanese could, or even would, go against doctrine. That dog, as they say in Texas, won't hunt. Aircraft carrier flight crews in the US moved around a lot. Not so with the Japanese in 1942. The carriers outside Kido Butai were considered second string--at best... Zuikaku lost too many planes and crew at Coral Sea and Japan never considered using Shokaku's planes and crews. The overly-complicated plan with multiple groups unable to support each other was doomed to fail before they left port. But it looked nice on paper. The Aleutian mission was part of the deal Yamamoto had to make to get the okay for Midway. The Japanese leaders assumed they would achieve surprise and even overturned wargamed results that anticipated it. You need to read more.

Kelly Arthur what on earth are you talking about. The IJN would have 2/3 fighters and 1/3 bombers. It would still be sufficient to wound Us carriers for battleships to get in position to sink the Us carriers. You’re obviously not paying attention as to what is occurring. A Kongo class battleships could do 30 knots. A wounded Us carrier is barely doing low 20 knots. Yorktown slowed to 19 knots after being hit. Wake up.

No matter what battle plan you come up with for the Japanese, the results are the same. They didn't have the element of surprise and the United States knew the battle plan and could adjust accordingly. If you want to remove HYPO and JN-25 then where does this ever end. Might as well come up with the huge electrical storm and the USS Nimitz with the Final Countdown scenario. Which I would have liked to see an alternative ending of the movie where they stay in 1941 and defend Hawaii.

@@timf2279 no they are not. Where do fools like you come from. Even the US Naval War College stated that had the IJN used their surface ships then they would have defeated the Americans. Don’t argue with me. You’re trying to say you know more than the US Naval War College. 😂🤣

@@f430ferrari5 I don't argue with idiots because when you do you become one.

@@timf2279

The problems with the torpedoes was fixed and US submarines wiped out the Japanese merchant fleet, especially tankers, from early 1944 until the end of the war. Japan had very little fuel and couldn't import enough food. They were slowly starving because of US submarines.

You need to qualify that statement. After September 1943 they were devastating and succeeded where the U-boats failed, notwithstanding the glaring failure of the IJN at understanding the necessity of a strong ASW capability.

@@Conn30Mtenor Excellent points Charles!

You are making a basic mistake of understanding by suggesting that to the US the threat of the Japanese Empire was somehow ultimately no more threatening than that of North Vietnam. The latter could NEVER do any direct damage to US interests and the reason to intervene in what amounted to a Vietnam civil war was the even then dubious (and since discredited) "domino theory." By comparison, Imperial Japan was one of the great powers on the planet with a naval as powerful as any other with - hands down - the world's best fleet air arm. The fact that they could destroy the US fleet at Pearl Harbor and conquer most of the western Pacific in just six months proves that Japan was a clear and present danger to the United States. People are far, FAR more willing to sacrifice and struggle against a direct threat to their nation and family than when supporting some far off regime that means nothing to the US and is no threat. That is why Japan's defeat was predestined once they set off the war with the attack on Pearl Harbor - they demonstrated in a powerful, terrifying way to the US populace that an enemy was taking a shot at potentially destroying their way of life. In such circumstances, the US was never going to stop until Japan lost the war.

Ranillon Nope, I haven't made that mistake at all. You just haven't understood what was being argued. At no point did i equate the threat or the level of political will between the Vietnam and Pacific wars. Thus, your entire post is a red herring. Vietnam is an analogous example I used to explore the interaction between political will and means in determining the outcome of the war. Yes, there was a difference in the level of political will - so what? There is in every conflict. There was also a massive difference in the relative capabilities of the combatants. The point is in ANY war IN HISTORY, you cant just amass a balance sheet of material assets and capabilities to determine the winner. The only reason US material superiority proved sufficient was because the level of casualties sustained was not enough to shake either the political leadership or public opinion. That does not mean, however, that such a level of casualties could not have been reached. That level was reached in Vietnam and it was almost reached in the civil war. Therefore, anyone who claims that any attritional conflict automatically favored the United States, simply because it has more stuff, fundamentally misunderstands the nature of warfare. On top of all that, we could argue about core US interests being more threatened by Japan - great power or not it never posed a direct threat to the continental United States, and its war aims were all directed at the traditional colonial powers. On the other hand the conflict in Vietnam was part of a much wider geopolitical struggle to contain the communist world - communism was a revolutionary ideology which did pose a real threat to the continental United States in the form of insurrection and revolution. So, even your red herring argument is unsubstantiated at best.

ebolalegion Again, i fear that misses the point as well - just because we cannot know for certain what level of political will the United States, as a polity, had in the pacific conflict, doesn't mean its a pointless question i.e. 'may have been a light year'. That's essentially an argument from ignorance. Yes, you could point to a map and say - figuratively - look at the progress. But what if the cost had been twice as high? What if by January 1944 the Japanese had inflicted a million casualties? Now you are point to our imaginary map and saying to the families of a million dead and maimed soldiers "look at all the tiny, useless islands we have taken on the other side of the planet". At some point, the costs do not justify the gains, and when that point is reached the Japanese would have effectively achieved their victory conditions. This is a historical fact - there was a level of cost at which the United States would have entered into negotiations with imperial Japan, Pearl Harbour or no Pearl Harbour. That is simply the nature of all warfare. Yes, that level was not reached. Indeed, there were no real signs that the United States was even close by war’s end. But that is a factor of growing US technological, tactical and mechanical superiority, making the rate of exchange between US and Japan relatively lopsided. In fact, the United States DID enter into negotiations with Japan in 1945, allowing a negotiated surrender which stood in direct contradiction to the “unconditional surrender” policy which had been the cornerstone of allied strategy since early 1943, primarily because of the cost of invading the home islands. This is the point of this whole conversation, and it was the original point of my first post: Jonathan argues that an attritional struggle with Japan inherently favoured the United States because of overwhelming US material superiority, and thus, implicitly, the Japanese were stupid for employing an attritional strategy. He literally says “as long as we stay in the fight, there’s no way we were going to lose this war”. But this completely ignores the advantages the Japanese had in both military and political will - arguably their best chance at defeating the United States was through attrition. “Staying in the war” was the strategic vulnerability the Japanese were trying to exploit. The fact that they failed in reality does not mean they were destined to fail. Basically, by engaging the United States in as many places as possible and by killing the maximum number of Americans, the Japanese were pursuing the best strategic course available to them. Additionally, you are making the same mistake as the other guy by looking at the political differences between Vietnam and the Pacific. The reason Vietnam is pertinent is because it is the shining example of overwhelming material and technological superiority not being enough to win a campaign waged on attritional principles, simply because those advantages were not outweighed by the level of commitment both societies had to the conflict. The exact mechanics of why the level of commitment was higher in the pacific than Vietnam really aren’t relevant - Vietnam shows us that an inferior power can win a war like this simply by being more committed. That alone utterly sinks the generalisations Jonathan made in this lecture. Again, if the United States had have won Vietnam, Jonathan may well have been giving lectures and making the same production centric arguments making the outcome of the war inevitable.

Jesus, calm down. I didn't change anything - i edited some spelling fifteen minutes after I wrote it. It does say something about truman - look at the last paragraph. What did you think I argued that I changed???? Go and look though those comments, the argument is consistent. Google has been randomly 'deleting' comments, so there may be one in there that is gone, I honestly can’t remember. I did say something about truman, that there was solid evidence that mass casualties were the primary reason the US compromised on the unconditional surrender policy, including Truman’s memoirs. That’s it as far as I know. Sorry if I was being overly condescending, this is youtube, it can usually get a little combative. But honestly, those were not great objections to the general argument here, and you were literally just making shit up. As to your questions: 1) - "why did the United States decide to pursue a war with Japan - especially considering its inability to partake in conflict as it sustained larger casualties?" Ok, this is somewhat of a bad question, and it shows that you either haven’t understood what the argument is, or you’re just fucking around trying to be a dick about it. I’ll assume the former: Firstly, no one, ever, argued that the United States was ‘incapable of partaking in a conflict which imposed high casualties’. Honestly, that’s childish, and it’s a straw position. The argument is that Japan had a competitive advantage in this area, because its politico-military apparatus and wider society were capable of greater sacrifice than western democracies, especially those like the United States who did not have national survival or fundamental geopolitical position at stake. Understand? That was Japan’s competitive advantage over the US, it was North Vietnam’s over the US, It was North Korea and China’s advantage in the Korean war and it was the confederacy’s advantage over the Union. Secondly, nations very rarely engage in warfare they think they are going to lose. This is how deterrence works in international relations. In December 1941 both the United States and Japan believed they had a strategic rationale for winning the war which justified pursuing it. Japan believed it could use its early advantages in quality and surprise to achieve its immediate strategic objectives, and then leverage force multipliers like fortifications to inflict maximum casualties on the United States, with the strategic aim of a negotiated peace which left Japan in control of, primarily Dutch, colonial possessions. The United States believed it could leverage its competitive advantages in industrial production and latent technological capability to defeat the Japanese before general will could be drastically effected by casualties. The United States ended up being successful, the Japanese did not. When this happens it’s called ‘conflict by miscalculation’ in international relations, and it’s generally what happens when deterrence fails. So that’s basically why this is a bad question, because it assumes a nation should know its fate when it makes these decisions: you essentially asked this implying that the opposite was obviously true. But you could just as easily ask why the Japanese were so stupid to initiate operations against the United States when material superiority apparently made their fate inevitable. What, were they just stupid, incapable of acting rationally, just plain crazy? Or was it perhaps that they believed they had a solid chance of forcing the United States to the table? 2) "When we compare the Japanese disposition between December 6th 1941 and September 2nd 1945, what are the favorable gains made by Japan after it had relied on its superior militaristic/civil/political will?" I’m not sure what you are getting at here - that japan lost the war? No shit. Obviously their strategic rationale failed. But the wider points you are missing here are a) there’s no reason to think they were destined to fail (the historians fallacy) and b) just because a plan failed, doesn’t mean that wasn’t the best course of action available to the Japanese (can you think of a better strategy for defeating the United States???). 3) "When we consider the Japanese disposition in June - July - August 1945, what are the significant gains to be made by the United States in regards to an invasion of the mainland, especially when compared to the result of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender that occurred on September 2nd 1945?" The major compromise was maintaining the religious basis for Japanese militarism - the emperor - and effectively making a separate peace with Japan (though the Soviets were present, all occupation and control was allied). These were significant concessions to stated US policy and strategic position, which were compromised purely on the grounds of casualties, which were minor compared to say Soviet or German losses. 4) In regards to prior experiences with Eastern Europe, did the Soviet mobilization into China have any effect on decisions made by the United States government to conclude the war with Japan? This literally had no effect: the Americans had been requesting for a long period that the Soviets join the pacific war. At Yalta the Soviets agreed that 90 days after Germany surrendered they would attack the Japanese. They launched their offensive on the day. The Soviet offensive cased the Japanese to surrender, not the Americans to accept. 5) In regards to the fate of German POWs captured previously by the Soviet Union, would this have played any significance on decisions made by the government of Japan on concluding the war with the United States? I don’t have any idea what you are even getting at here. Thousands of allied POWs had already been killed - this was never part of the strategic calculus. And anyway, what does the eastern front have to do with Japan?

ebolalegion Stop being so fucking childish. Yes, i wrote that post - seriously, google deleted it. There has been issues with the google messaging system for months/years now: productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/uAofKjtZqSw You cant just delete a post if its not your channel, you can delete the content of a post but an empty post will still be in the thread. Do you see one? By the way, why the fuck would I delete that post??? I stand by everything I said in it. Here' i'll go over the major points, again, and since you are STILL being a dick even AFTER I apologised for being condescending, I’ll include that too: 1) Claiming that "what if premises" are invalid is pretty 'gosh darn silly' i.e. stupid, because that is the basis of all historical analysis. I was trying to explain to you the difference between analysing historical causes and establishing facts. This isn’t about establishing what actually happened, it’s about understanding WHY what happened, happened. In that kind of a conversation the only way you can test different ideas is by changing the parameters, and using other historical examples to test the idea. Essentially you were criticizing me for doing something professional historians do every day. 2) Challenging the likelihood of a hypothetical example actually totally misses the point of what a hypothetical is, which makes it pretty ‘gosh darn silly’ i.e. stupid. That’s like if someone said ‘ Mike Tyson wasn’t a great boxer, if he had have fought Ali there’s no way he would have touched him’, and you replying ‘but Ali was older than Tyson so they wouldn’t have fought’. No shit, that’s not what hypothetical examples are for. This goes back to the million casualty question. 3) You literally made some shit up about why the United States ended the war and what Truman wanted to do.I said there is direct evidence from truman's memoirs that causalities were the major rationale for first using the atomic weapons,and then softening the unconditional surrender demand. There, did I miss anything,? Or are we going to sook like a fucking teenager, becasue someone just pointed to the fact that you were being 'gosh darn silly' on a couple of points in a you-tube conversation. Why are you so sensitive about this? Its not like I a called you a fucking idiot. Have you not been around youtibe long? I've been called 50 times worse thing than you just called me. "Fucking , pathetic punk piece of shit" That's how you worded it, right? All becsaue I said some of your points were gosh darn silly, and i have a better understanding of world war two. Take a fucking look at yourself.