Marching Orders: The Untold Story of How the American Breaking of the Japanese Secret Codes Led to the Defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan

by Bruce Lee

He replied that it was not until May 1945 that the British had begun to study casualty estimates for the invasion and forcible occupation of Japan. Foot and another RNVR officer named Rich were given all the casualty figures for the invasions made during the war, from Dieppe to Okinawa, and were told to work out a probable casualty rate for a seaborne invasion of Japan. In his letter Foot said: “I have never been able to forget our conclusion. The invasion would have cost 600,000 Allied dead, plus 900,000 Japanese dead. We specified that we counted service dead only, taking no account of civilian casualties.” I also had concluded in Marching Orders that if we had not dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, and