In our history books, 1946 is the first full year of peace. In the Allied war plans, it was to be the year of Operation Coronet, an assault on the Tokyo plain committing up to 45 US divisions, following Operation Olympic, the November 1, 1945, landing on southern Kyushu backed by 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and over 400 destroyers. This episode walks through the blueprints of Operation Downfall, the cancelled invasion of Japan, and the turf war between Admiral Nimitz's blockade strategy and General MacArthur's insistence on boots on the ground under a Quebec Conference deadline to end the war within twelve months of Germany's defeat.

The episode then turns to Japan's answer, Operation Ketsugo, a plan not to win but to make the invasion so costly that Washington would negotiate: 10,000 hidden kamikaze aircraft using mountain valley ...