"I guess I missed the part about World War II where they firebombed our largest cities and dropped atom bombs on us"
Fortunately for the US, all our largest cities were located in England. You don't remember them dropping The Bomb on us cuz we did it to them B4 they did it to us. fas.org
Should we have dropped it? I vote yes. Everything some say today about militant Islamists willing to die for the cause was also true of the Japanese. The Pacific would have turned red if we didn't use them.
Operation Ketsugo
Meanwhile, the Japanese had their own plans. Initially, they were concerned about an invasion during the summer of 1945. However, the Battle of Okinawa (The battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Based on Okinawan government sources, [10] mainland Japan lost 77,166 soldiers, who were either killed or committed suicide, and the Allies suffered 14,009 deaths (with an estimated total of more than 65,000 casualties of all kinds). Simultaneously, 42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or committed suicide, a significant proportion of the local population.) went on for so long that they concluded the Allies would not be able to launch another operation before the typhoon season, during which the weather would be too risky for amphibious operations. Japanese intelligence predicted fairly closely where the invasion would take place: southern Kyushu at Miyazaki, Ariake Bay, and/or the Satsuma Peninsula. [19]
While Japan no longer had a realistic prospect of winning the war, Japan's leaders believed they could make the cost of conquering Japan too high for the Allies to accept, which would lead to some sort of armistice rather than total defeat. The Japanese plan for defeating the invasion was called Operation Ketsugo (????, ketsugo sakusen ?) ("Operation Codename Decisive"). The Japanese had secretly constructed an underground headquarters which could be used in the event of Allied invasion to shelter the Emperor and the Imperial General Staff.
[ edit] Kamikaze Admiral Matome Ugaki was recalled to Japan in February 1945 and given command of the Fifth Air Fleet on Kyushu. The Fifth Air Fleet was assigned the task of kamikaze attacks against ships involved in the invasion of Okinawa, Operation Ten-Go, and began training pilots and assembling aircraft for the defense of Kyushu where the Allies were likely to invade next.
The Japanese defense relied heavily on kamikaze planes. In addition to fighters and bombers, they reassigned almost all of their trainers for the mission, trying to make up in quantity what they lacked in quality. Their army and navy had more than 10,000 aircraft ready for use in July (and would have had somewhat more by October) and were planning to use almost all that could reach the invasion fleets. Ugaki also oversaw building of hundreds of small suicide boats that would also be used to attack any Allied ships that came near the shores of Kyushu.
Fewer than 2,000 kamikaze planes launched attacks during the Battle of Okinawa, achieving approximately one hit per nine attacks. At Kyushu, because of the more favorable circumstances (such as terrain that reduced the US's radar advantage), they hoped to get one for six by overwhelming the US defenses with large numbers of kamikaze attacks in a period of hours. The Japanese estimated that the planes would sink more than 400 ships; since they were training the pilots to target transports rather than carriers and destroyers, the casualties would be disproportionately greater than at Okinawa. One staff study estimated that the kamikazes could destroy a third to half of the invasion force before its landings. [20]
[ edit] Naval forces By August 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had ceased to be an effective fighting force. The only major Japanese warships in fighting order were six aircraft carriers, four cruisers, and one battleship, none of which could be adequately fueled. They could "sustain a force of twenty operational destroyers and perhaps forty submarines for a few days at sea." [21]
The IJN also had about 100 Koryu-class midget submarines, 250 smaller Kairyu-class midget submarines, 400 Kaiten manned torpedoes, and 800 Shin'yo suicide boats.
[ edit] Ground forces In any amphibious operation, the defender has two options for defensive strategy: strong defense of the beaches or defense in depth. Early in the war (such as at Tarawa), the Japanese employed strong defenses on the beaches with little or no manpower in reserve. This tactic proved to be very vulnerable to pre-invasion shore bombardment. Later in the war, at Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, the Japanese switched strategy and dug in their forces in the most defensible terrain.
For the defense of Kyushu, the Japanese took an intermediate posture, with the bulk of their defensive forces a few kilometers inland from the shore: back far enough to avoid complete exposure to naval gunnery but close enough that the Americans could not establish a secure foothold before engaging them. The counteroffensive forces were still farther back, prepared to move against whichever landing seemed to be the main effort.
In March 1945, there was only one combat division in Kyushu. Over the next four months, the Imperial Japanese Army transferred forces from Manchuria, Korea, and northern Japan, while raising other forces in place. By August, they had 14 divisions and various smaller formations, including three tank brigades, for a total of 900,000 men. [22] Although the Japanese were able to raise large numbers of new soldiers, equipping them was more difficult. By August, the Japanese Army had the equivalent of 65 divisions in the homeland but only enough equipment for 40 and only enough ammunition for 30. [23]
The Japanese did not formally decide to stake everything on the outcome of the Battle of Kyushu, but they concentrated their assets to such a degree that there would be little left in reserve. By one estimate, the forces in Kyushu had 40% of all the ammunition in the Home Islands. [24]
In addition, the Japanese had organized the Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps, which included all healthy men aged 15 to 60 and women 17 to 40 for a total of 28 million people, for combat support and, later, combat jobs. Weapons, training, and uniforms were generally lacking: some men were armed with nothing better than muzzle-loading muskets, longbows, or bamboo spears; nevertheless, they were expected to make do with what they had. [25]
One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. … You must aim for the abdomen." [26]
[ edit] Allied re-evaluation of Olympic [ edit] Air threat US military intelligence initially estimated the number of Japanese aircraft to be around 2,500. [27] The Okinawa experience was bad: almost two fatalities and a similar number wounded per sortie—and Kyushu was likely to be worse. To attack the ships off Okinawa, Japanese planes had to fly long distances over open water; to attack the ships off Kyushu, they could fly overland and then short distances out to the landing fleets. Gradually, intelligence learned that the Japanese were devoting all their aircraft to the kamikaze mission and taking effective measures to conserve them until the battle. An Army estimate in May was 3,391 planes; in June, 4,862; in August, 5,911. A Navy estimate, abandoning any distinction between training and combat aircraft, in July was 8,750; in August, 10,290. [28]
The Allies made counter-kamikaze preparations, known as the Big Blue Blanket. This involved adding more fighter squadrons to the carriers in place of torpedo and dive bombers, and converting B-17s into airborne radar pickets in manner similar to modern-day AWACS. Nimitz came up with a plan for a pre-invasion feint, sending a fleet to the invasion beaches a couple of weeks before the real invasion, to lure out the Japanese on their one-way flights, who would then find—instead of the valuable, vulnerable transports—ships loaded with anti-aircraft guns from bow to stern.
The main defense against Japanese air attacks would have come from the massive fighter forces that were being assembled in the Ryukyu Islands. US Army Fifth and Seventh Air Force and US Marine air units had moved into the islands immediately after the invasion, and air strength had been increasing in preparation for the all-out assault on Japan. In preparation for the invasion, an air campaign against Japanese airfields and transportation arteries had commenced before the Japanese surrender.
[ edit] Ground threat Through April, May, and June, Allied intelligence followed the buildup of Japanese ground forces, including five divisions added to Kyushu, with great interest but some complacency, still projecting that in November the total for Kyushu would be about 350,000 servicemen. That changed in July, with the discovery of four new divisions and indications of more to come. By August, the count was up to 600,000, and Magic cryptanalysis had identified ninedivisions in southern Kyushu—three times the expected number. (In fact, this was still a serious underestimate of Japanese strength; see above.)
Estimated troop strength in early July was 350,000, [29] rising to 545,000 in early August. [30]
The intelligence revelations about Japanese preparations on Kyushu emerging in mid-July transmitted powerful shock waves both in the Pacific and in Washington. On 29 July, [MacArthur's intelligence chief, Major General Charles A.] Willoughby … noted first that the April estimate allowed for the Japanese capability to deploy six divisions on Kyushu, with the potential to deploy ten. "These [six] divisions have since made their appearance, as predicted," he observed, "and the end is not in sight." If not checked, this threatened "to grow to [the] point where we attack on a ratio of one (1) to one (1) which is not the recipe for victory." [31]
The build-up of Japanese troops on Kyushu led American war planners, most importantly General George Marshall, to consider drastic changes to Olympic, or replacing it with a different plan for invasion.[ citation needed]
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