Wil-Low Series #1: Operation Downfall

ISBN: 9798187727025 — Available for purchase from October 1, 2026

War isn’t won by force — it’s won by minds.

Story: 90 pages
End notes: 40 pages
Total page count: 134 pages

Summer 1945. The war in Europe is over, but Japan refuses to surrender.
When British codebreaker Alan Turing is kidnapped and taken to the Mitsubishi Complex in Nagasaki, he is forced to test the encryption behind Japan’s newest weapon: towering hydraulic mecha samurai.
Across the Pacific, American scientists Terman, Oppenheimer, Hewlett, and Packard race aboard the experimental submarine Nautilus to complete a revolutionary quantum computer.
Inside the Nagasaki factory, undercover agent Natsuki Tanaka risks everything to obtain a single control chip—the key to overriding the mechas' encrypted signals.

A gripping alternate-history thriller where the fate of the world hinges on a computer chip, a handful of spies, and an alliance of history's greatest minds.

Screenplay

A password-protected screenplay version (first-draft version) is available on FilmFreeway.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Alan Turing ... 5
• Chapter 2: Fred Terman ... 16
• Chapter 3: Jiro Horikoshi ... 24
• Chapter 4: Robert Oppenheimer ... 31
• Chapter 5: Korechika Anami ... 36
• Chapter 6: Spies ... 41
• Chapter 7: Missed Contact ... 47
• Chapter 8: The Encoder ... 51
• Chapter 9: The Breakout ... 54
• Chapter 10: One Chance Left ... 58
• Chapter 11: Unmasked ... 61
• Chapter 12: Into the Night ... 65
• Chapter 13: Operation Downfall ... 70
• Chapter 14: The Steel Tide ... 74
• Chapter 15: The Configuration ... 78
• Chapter 16: The Override ... 82
• Chapter 17: Reversal ... 87
• Chapter 18: The Homecoming ... 91
• Background Information ... 95

Book Fragments

Do you want to know what to expect from this book?

Check out these fragments:

• Fragment 1: First five pages of Chapter 1, in which Alan Turing presents his (fictional) Compact Hydraulic Integrated Circuit.
• Fragment 2: Some words about the author and the genre, followed by illustrated end notes, e.g. about real-life hydraulic computers.

Visit the home page to learn more about the other titles.

Videos

End Notes: Illustations

Note	Description and link to the source
1	Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, 1944
2	Alan Turing, 1936
4	Professor A.W.H. Phillips with the MONIAC
5	Punched card machines, Bletchley Park, 1945
6	A three-rotor Enigma machine
9	Nagasaki
9	Nagasaki harbor, photo taken by Flight Officer Bruce C. Saxton on August 1, 1945
10	Hinomaru
10	Kyokujitsu-ki
11	Japanese hand-tinted postcard of the Big Crane in the Mitsu Bishi Dockyard in Nagasaki
11	Mitsubishi Zero A6M5 Model 52c on Kyushu island, 1945
12	Jiro Horikoshi, 1924
12	An Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A6M2 "Zero" fighter on the aircraft carrier Akagi during the Pearl Harbor attack mission, December 7, 1941
14	Imperial Japanese attack bomber, over Hickam Field during the second wave of attacks
15	Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, circa 1942.
16	Battle of Midway
16	Battle of Midway: Dauntless dive bombers approach the burning heavy cruiser Mikuma, June 6, 1942
17	Iwo Jima
17	Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
18	Okinawa
18	US Marine reinforcements wade ashore to support the beachhead on Okinawa, 1 April 1945
20	Mills Field San Francisco Airport, 1928
20	San Francisco Airport, San Bruno
20	USS Los Angeles, flying over southern Manhattan Island, 1930
21	Moffett Field, ca 1934
22	William Hewlett, 1993
24	Stanford University, aerial view
24	Stanford University, view from the Oval
26	Hewlett-Packard garage and house exterior in Palo Alto
27	Robert Oppenheimer, 1944
28	University of California, Berkeley, 1939
29	Aerial view of the aftermath of the Trinity test, 28 hours after the explosion.
31	Palo Alto
32	Xerox PARC in 2006
32	Xerox PARC, aerial view in 2020
35	David Packard, ca. 1969
36	Original plan of the Ictineo II
39	Korechika Anami, 1933
40	Diagram presenting the encryption and the decryption of a document using asymmetric cryptography.
42	Sensei wearing a hakama
43	World War II Katana
45	Operation Downfall, the proposed Allied invasion of the Empire of Japan
46	Harry S. Truman, ca. 1947
47	Exclusion Order posted to direct Japanese Americans living in the first San Francisco section to evacuate.
47	Granada Relocation Center in Colorado
48	Japanese Instrument of Surrender, signed September 2, 1945
49	Women in woolen kimono, 1957

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