United States Army Air Forces in Okinawa - Epilogue

Epilogue

The Battle of Okinawa was a critical turning point that served as a catalyst for the world-changing decision that followed. It helped spur President Truman's decision to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons, because the casualty numbers at Okinawa indicated a projected one million deaths for the planned Invasion of Japan.

At Okinawa, American military forces all but destroyed Japan's Imperial Army in the Pacific. The sinking of Japan's last major naval vessels in the battle and the elimination of almost all available fuel supplies in Japan by the Twentieth Air Force's destruction of most fuel storage and oil refineries forced an end to the Japanese war machine's capability to engage in battle effectively.

To the Japanese, the defeat on Okinawa convinced the civilian leadership that defeat was inevitable. Their arguments convinced Emperor Hirohito to oppose the pro-war leaders in his government, and after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to accept the Potsdam Declaration's demand for Japan's unconditional surrender.

Two months later, on 15 August 1945 Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allied forces, ending the War in the Pacific, and World War II came to an end. The massive air armada assembled by the USAAF for the Invasion of Japan was never used in combat; it was instead partially used as an occupation force, but mostly demobilized and inactivated in 1945 and 1946.