The sheer magnitude of the invasion of japan under the name “Olympic” was going to make D-Day look tiny.
over a THOUSAND ships.
over 1 million tons in supplies
and the alies casualties were anticipated to be high.
You are correct. It would have been to the death for both sides. It would be no touchy feely introspective hollyweird BS.
I don’t think that either Olympic or Coronet would have happened. Especially after Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
There would have been a naval blockade and continued conventional bombing. There would have been magnitudes more Japanese deaths from that than from the atomic attacks. And that’s not counting what the Sovs would have done to the Japanese army on the mainland.