Thankful for the invasion that never was

Each year as Easter approaches, I am reminded of my most memorable Easter Day. It was D-day during the invasion of Okinawa on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, in the waning days of World War II. Okinawa was the stepping stone to the invasion of the Empire of Japan.

I was a U.S. navy sailor aboard U.S.S. LST582, which had arrived at early dawn. H-hour at the invasion beachhead was 8:30 a.m.

We had 500 battle hardened U.S. Marines aboard. Our ship was nestled between the battleship West Virginia off our port (left) beam and the battleship Idaho off our starboard (right) beam. They had been pulverizing the beaches with their monstrous earth shaking shells. Our U.S. carrier planes were swarming overhead like honey bees, while the Japanese kamikaze planes came at us like yellow jackets.

‘Operation downfall’

After Okinawa’s success, we began preparations for the greatest invasion that never was — thank God and President Harry Truman. Declassified plans for “operation downfall,” the invasion of Japan, called for two massive military operations. The first invasion was code named “Operation Olympic” and scheduled for Nov. 1, 1945, to hit Kyushu. The second invasion was scheduled for March 1, 1946, code named “Operation Coronet,” and would be an attack on the main island of Honshu.

If the invasion of the Japanese Empire had occurred, I might not be here writing this story.

Two of my newspaper stories defending President Truman’s decision to drop the atom bomb are in the research room collection of published materials concerning the atomic bomb in the Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo. One of the stories was published in The Vindicator on Aug. 6, 1995, titled “Sailor had no qualms about use of bomb.”

To the many thousands of us who were spared, Truman was our savior and made the right decision. Recent statistics show that only 15 percent of the 16 million World War II veterans are still alive. We will soon become extinct, like the World War I vets.

X Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and an inductee in the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.