Quickly, and leaving out much important detail, they were running out of the raw materials of a military industrial society. There were bascially two places to get them--Siberia and the Dutch East Indies. The Soviets had already cleaned their clocks for them in Siberia in 1939--and, by the by, their armistice with the Soviet Union freed the troops who would stop the Germans cold (literally cold) in front of Moscow--so that left them with the Dutch alternative. Taking the Dutch East Indies meant they would have to neutralize the English in Singapore (should have been difficult, but General Perceval was too well mannerd to be rude to guests, even the univited--his men affectionately called him "the Rabbit") and on the island of Borneo, and the Americans in the Phillipines. Obviously, the Australians were not likely to be enchanted by the whole affair, either. They had their work cut out for them. They had already occupied French Indo China, and had bases in Saigon and at Camran Bay; they had overrun Taiwan, and used that as a major staging area, and operated several air bases there. The Dutch had a single, out-dated cruiser. The Australians had the best 1930's class light cruisers the English could sell them--which means their navy was pathetic. The English had two large fleets based on Ceylon, with eight battleships--one had adequate (and no better) anti-aircraft batteries, and good main batteries; one had very good anti-aircraft, and main batteries which would make a light cruiser blush; the rest had good main batteries and less anti-aircraft protection than most low-grade American destroyers. Their cruisers were little better in terms of either main batteries or anti-aircraft. The entire English shootin' match was at least four days steaming from Singapore. When Prince of Wales eventually did try to shell Camran Bay after the war in the Pacific had begun, Japanese air power sunk her, and several of her escorts, as the English proved they were totally clueless when it came to naval air power (they more than made up for, but only after the war). Basically, this left the US as the only creditable threat to their plan, and we were firmly planted on the flank of their operations--the Phillipines were on their tactical/operation flank, and Pearl was on their strategic flank. In the Phillipines, we had three old cruisers and about a dozen of the nearly worthless "Flash Deck" class of destroyers, a few PT boats and some submarines, old submarines with suicically worthless torpedoes (the Japanese "Long Lance" torpedo was state of the art, better than anything anyone had until late 1944--its proven effective range was 22,000 yards, about 12 or 13 miles). The biggest threat from the Phillipines was American air power--and, although the attack on Pearl came hours before the Japanese were able to attack from Taiwan (they were socked in with heavy fog until mid-day), the Americans obliginly left their aircraft parked on the airfields--we didn't even send out reconnaisance flights.
That left Pearl--and Yamamoto knew Americans very well, knew that we would come after them, and likely knew the Japan would ultimately lose. But he was a faithful officer, and he came up with the best plan he could--one that frightened most people who were made privy to the plan. Genda and the other young officers worked miracles in making the tactical portion of the plan workable--aerially launched torpedoes usually sank to 100 meters or more, before rising and ""porpoising," that is, coming almost completely out of the water, then falling and making their run. The water in the basin at Pearl averaged about 40 meters. Without knowing the target or the target conditions, Imperial Navy artificers came up with and produced a sufficient quantity of torpedoes which would dive to no more than 30 meters, and rise to the surface to commence their run with "porpoising." As well as the torpedo attack planes and dive bombers, they used horizontal bombers. Once again, the artificers were called upon to provide a solution, and they successfully modified 16" armor piercing shells for use in horizontal bombing runs. The pilots were trained non-stop for months to make the attack without being informed of the target or target conditions--and they performed in a superior manner in training, and in the attack. Given the conditions in Japan and the Imperial Navy in late 1941, i credit them with pulling off the most amazing naval operation in history, when viewed from the initial planning to the execution. I believe i know how Nagumo was motivated to get out quickly, but it negated in large measure the effectiveness of Yamamoto's plan. Given that no one envisioned the atom attacks of 1945, and that a second or third attack on Pearl--especially an attack on the "tank farms" right next to the basin, where the fuel oil was stored--would have seriously crippled out war effort for perhaps a year or more, it is not unreasonable that Yamamoto himself envisioned fighting the US to a standstill and then seeking a negotiated settlement. It was not unreasonable to see such an objective in 1941--and it was well know among those with high-level information, that the US was anxious to deal with Hitler, and that our war plans were not being based around a major effort in the Pacific.
Babs, i didn't have it saved, aol lost the entire post just as i was copying it, and then lost the connection. I initially wrote much more. I've been reading history since i was seven, and my grandfather gave me The Outline of History, by H. G. Wells. It was a bit much for a kid that age, but i loved it, and i believe he knew i would. I had a double-major in college, History and English.
c.i., the Japanese missed a lot of crucial targets. Yamamoto's plan envisioned a second or even a third attack--and this despite the projection that they would likely suffer up to 40% casualties in the initial attack. Hitting those other targets would have made the losses justifiable, and, Lt. Gen. Short had assured that the Japanese casualties were negligible by locking up ammunition and parking the fighters in the centers of the airfields. I do understand Nagumo's attitude, though, i believe--he did not necessarily know the direction of Yamamoto's thinking, he was the responsible officer on the scene, and he had pulled off an incredibly successful first strike with hardly any losses. It was a sound decision of a competent naval officer to cut and run, thereby preserving major naval assets, especially given the lack of information of the whereabouts of major US naval forces.
Yeah, the only military advantage gained was, at the risk of a half dozen planes and their aircrew, to bring about the immediate, unconditional capitulation of a regime disposing well over 2 Million trained, equipped, healthy, highly motivated military, an available auxilliary of perhaps 4 Million, and a citizen militia of nearly 30 Million, all under the absolute control of a fanatical military hierarchy, sworn and prepared to resist to the last drop of blood ... hardly a big deal.
Except for history ... the history of an invasion that never happened.
Operation Olympic, planned for October-November, 1945, was to be the first of a 2-part seaborne invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, with a 14 Division assault, some 300,000 land-combat troops and approximately 4 to 5 times that number of Naval, Airforce, and non-combatant support personnel, on the Southernmost Home Island, Kyushu. The second phase, named Operation Coronet, was to commence on or about March 1, 1946, providing Olympic had gone at least marginally according to plan, something that was by no means a foregone conclusion. The the Coronet assault was to be a 25 Division assault on the Main Home Island, Honshu, the immediate objective being a drive up the Tokyo Plain, both to take the capital and to bifurcate the defender's troop concentration. All told, between the two operations, an initial allocation of some 1.8 Million combat troops and over 3 Million other military, were to be committed, or nearly one half of all US uniformed forces at the time, would be involved in the operations, along with civilian support, mostly Merchant Marine, numbering into the low hundreds of thousands. Total manpower commitment to the invasion was to be well upwards of 5 Million souls; the entirety of The US Marine Corps, the entire US Pacific Fleet (some 3000 ships), the entire 8th Army, the entire 8th Air Force (redeployed from Europe), the entire 20th Airforce, and the entire American Far Eastern Air Force and roughly one third of The Merchant Marine.
Heavy casualties were expected, given experience gained from the nearly three years of island hopping begun at Guadalcanal in November of 1942. Estimates for the Kyushu assault alone were 2 to 3 hundred thousand. General Douglas MacArthur, overall US Pacific Commander, officially anticipated over 1 Million Own Forces would be killed or wounded by the Autum of 1946. General Charles Willoughby, Mac Arthur's Intelligence Chief, considered that a conservative estimate.
Though effectively contained by a nearly impenetrable naval blockade, and daily pummled from the air by endless streams of bombers, Japan adamantly refused surrender. A blockade isolates a Power, but it does not kill it. Strategic bombing lays waste to cities, devastates populations, crippling industry and transport, but leaves entire Armies relatively unscathed.
Truman approved the invasion plans on July 24, 1945, while at the Potsdam Conference. 2 days later, the UN issued the Potsdam Proclamation, a final call for Japan immediately to surrender, unconditionally, or face sure and total destruction. On the 29th of July, The Japanese Governmental News Agency, the official organ of the regime, formally broadcast to the world Japan's unswerving intention to refuse surrender and to ignore all provisos of the Potsdam Proclamation.
At about this time, late July of 1945, intelligence intercepts revealed Japan had closed all schools, non-essential industry, and commerce, mobilizing and arming much of its civilian population. Aerial reconnaisance clearly showed massive fortification and underground facility construction underway throughout Japan.
It was anticipated the initial action against Kyushu would commence on 27 October 1945, with the first moves of a 4-pronged attack to be the taking and occupation of of several smaller islands South and Southwest of Kyushu proper. The 40th Infantrey Division and the 158th Regimental Combat Team were assigned this task, with Naval support from 3 Battleships, 12 Cruisers, and 4 Aircraft Carriers, along with myriad lesser warships. The islands were to provide land-based communications and radar, both to warn the fleet of enemy air or surface activity, and air traffic control for the air armada accompanying the invasion, as well as emergency aircraft landing facilities and a sheltered anchorage for damaged invasion vessels.
Bombardment, both by surface ship and by aircraft, would precede the beach landing by 72 hours, and continue throughout the operation, "rolling" in front of the planned overland advance. The main invasion of Kyushu was to commence at dawn November 1, with simultaneous amphibious assaults along the Eastern, Morthern, and Western coasts of the island.
The 25th, 33rd, and 41st Infantry Divisions would have the Eastern prong, landing near the city of Myasaki, at 6 beach heads codenamed "Austin", "Buick", "Cadillac", "Chevrolet", "Chrysler" and "Cord". The assualt objectives were to be the capture of the city and of a nearby large military airfield.
On the Southern Flank, the 1st Cavaly Division, the 43 Division, and the Americal Division would invade the Amake Bay area at beaches codenamed "DeSoto", "Dusenberg", "Essex", "Ford" and "Franklin". The objectives were the capture of the port cities of Shibshi and Kanoya, and another large Imperial Army Airfield.
To the West, the beaches were codenamed "Pontiac", "Reo", "Rolls Royce", "Saxon", "Star", "Studebaker", "Stutz", "Winton" and "Zephyr". V Amphibious Corps, consisting of 2nd, 3rd and 5th Marine Divisions was to take the port city of Kagoshima and to drive inland to the city of Sendai, site of a major Imperial Army Base.
On November 4th, following a feint attack on the island of Shikoku, 81st and 98th Infantry Divisions and the 11th Airborne Division, unless already committed elsewhere as emergency reserve, would attack Kagoshima Bay, across beaches codenamed "Locomobile", "Lincoln", "LaSalle", "Hupmobile", "Moon", "Mercedes", "Maxwell", "Overland", "Oldsmobile", "Packard" and "Plymouth", with the city of Kaimondake, a Naval Airfield, and a Submarine base as objectives.
A 4-month timetable was established for Olympic, and each month would see the landing of an additional 3 Divisions. The assault on Kyushu, itself the largest single military endeavor in to that time in history, was to be but prelude. Assuming success for Olympic, Coronet, the Main Event and over twice the size of its predecessor, was scheduled to open March 1st, 1946.
East of Tokyo, the American 1st Army would land the 5th, 7th, 27th, 44th, 86th and 96th Infantry Divisions, along with 1st, 4th and 6th Marine Divisions. To the South, at Sagami Bay, 8th and 10th Armies, comprised of the 4th, 6th, 8th, 24th, 31st, 32nd, 37th, 38th and 87th Infantry Divisions, accompanied by the 13th and 20th Armoured Divisions would strike inland toward the city complex of Yokohama. Subsequent assaults were to be conducted at various points by an additional 8 Divisions, the 2nd, 28th, 35th, 91st, 95th, 97th and 104th Infantry Divisions and the 11th Airborne Division. Follow-on forces, consisting of as many as an additional dozen Divisions redeployed from Europe and currently undergoing refitting, replacement, and retraining in the US already had their re-deployment orders.
This almost unimagineable force structure was calculated as necessary and sufficient ro accomplishe the task given the best estimates of the intelligence services at the time. Postwar examination of documents, discovery of assetts, and interrogation of captured Senior Officers revealed the available intelligence had badly underestimated the actual defensive capacity of Japan.
Following the Okinawa campaign, during which Kamikaze attacks sunk 32 ships and damaged over 400 more, the assessment was that Japan had largely spent her airpower. The assumption was aided by the fact US bombers and fighters faced essentially no Japanese air interdiction over The Home Islands, and were able to roam and strike almost at will, day or night, hindered only by desultory anti-aircraft fire.
In fact, the Japanese Homeland Defense Plan, codenamed Ketsu-Go, had seen to the marshalling of over 12,700 serviceable aircraft, along with the construction of dozens of subteranean hangar facilities, scores of hidden, camoflaged airstrips, and the stockpiling of tens of thousands of gallons of fuel and hundreds of thousand tons of nunitions, from bombs and torpedoes to rockets, mortar rounds, and artillery projectiles, and a few thousand tons of military-grade explosives not encompassed with projectiles. Additionally, in "cottage shops" and under bridges, in basements and in mines and tunnels, military production was continuing at a feverish pace.
The Ketsu-Go plan was for four separate aerial campaigns against the invasion fleet. While 2000 fighters were to contest the skies over Kyushu, an initial 800 plane Kamikaze attack was to engage the fleet during its assembly about the islands, over Kyushu. A second force of over 300 planes was to target specifically the aircraft carriers and other ground-fire-capable ships, attacking in waves from all points of the compass. Over 800 more suicide planes were to target the transports and landing ships.
The Kyushu defense was allotted approximately 2000 additional planes, most of which which were to be used in suicide waves of from 50 to over 100, as the situation merited and circumstances permitted.
The Japanese calculated they could stymie the invasion and inflict crippling losses on both the capital ships and escorts and the support ships. Relying not just on air power, they had 40 operational submarines, each fully manned, fueled, and armed. Some 20 destroyers and three cruisers remained operational as well, and were to be used variously to counterattack the invasion fleet and, beached, as fire support platforms.
Additionally, there was a force of some 400 suicide submarines ... little more than manned torpedoes, but deadly nonetheless. The invasion fleet would come under devastating, unceasing assault from land, sea, and air, before the troops even got to the beaches.
Confident of inflicting staggering losses, though at horrendous cost to themselves, the Japanese anticipated the Americans would falter, back off, abandon the endeavor, and, shocked and demoralized, perhaps to offer at least face-saving, less-than-unconditional surrender terms.
Nothing if not meticulous in planning, the Japanese had a fallback plan, should the invasion succeed in lodging troops ashore, as they thought likely.
The most determined and fanatical defense of the war had been prepared. The Japanese High Command had correctly worked out not only when, but almost to the foot where the Americans would attack. They planned an experience very different from that which the island-hopping war had led the Americans to expect. To that point throughout the Pacific War, the Americans invariably had outnumbered their island-defending adversries by margins of 2-or-3-to-1.
On Kyushu, the odds would be less favorable to the Americans. Considerably less favorable; facing the anticipated 14 American Divisions would be 14 Japanese Divisions, 7 independent combined-arms forces of roughly Brigade strength, 3 fully equipped Tank Brigades, and several thousand Naval Troops. Around 800,000 defenders stood ready to repell some 500,000 invaders, assuming even that many had survived the furious pre-invasion defense. And unlike so often in the island campaigns, the defending troops woul;d not be ill-equipped, poorly trained labor and punishment battalions. The Home Army was well fed, well led, well trained, and well equipped. The remaining cream of the Army, tens of thousands of battle-tested veterans, elite troops in every sense, stiffened the lesser formations, which were themselves of a calibre markedly higher than that to which The Americans had become accustomed to meeting. And these troops were flush with a fanatical, almost-beyond-religious determination to sell their lives as dearly as they could.
Offshore mines, scuba divers, manned torpedoes, cunningly crafted obstacles, and onshore mines in the thousands comprised the first belt of beach defenses. Behind these were laid out over hundreds of yards row upon row of trenches and revetments, pillboxes and bunkers, all designed to be as inconspicuous as possible, and to be resistant to naval bombardment and aerial attack, with interlocking fields of fire, multiply reinforcing one another and situated to rake the beaches with withering fire. Further back were emplaced artillery and mortars, again protected by construction specifically created to offer naximun protection from both nombs and shells. The troops to man these positions were garrisoned, with as much of their equipment as was practical deep underground, impervious even to the 1-ton projectiles fired by Battleships. They had been drilled to remain in the safety of their shelters -undergrouind fortresses, really - untill the last moment, at which point, American troops swarming ashore, the bombardment lifted to strike deeper inland, they could assume their positions, lay their weapons, and engage the enemy at the tideline.
They had developed a transportation and communication system virtually undetectable from the air, and were adept at using it. There were massive caches of arms and munitions in hundreds of concealed locations. There were yet more intertwining trenches and tunnels, hidden bunkers, hundreds of heavy artillery pieces, some mounted on rail cars, rigged to shuttle in and out of deep tunnels with concealed entrances, mortars and machineguns secreted within houses, shops, and schools, tanks disguised under haystacks and rubbish piles, endless tangles of barbed wire, fire ditches ready to be flooded with flammable liquid and set alight, and there were literally millions of anti-personnel and anti-armor mines, many already laid in the vicinity of the anticipated invasion beaches, huge quantities ready to be deployed. There were chemical weapons too. Gases and biologics, tested against Chinese, Mongolian, and Korean adversaries, were available and situated with troops trained and experiewnced in their deployment. The defenders knew the lay of the land, and they were going to be defending their own homes and families. It was for them literally a fight to death or victory with no alternative between.
And then there was the armed and mobilzed citezenry ... literally millions of them. Possessed only of the most rudimentary training, and given the crudest of weapons ... suicide weapons in large part, they were no less determined to die for their Emporor, Homeland, heritage, and honor than were the uniformed forces. Some 28 Million strong, the National Volunteer Combat force was galvanized under the incessently drummed mantra "A Hundred Million will die gladly for our Emperor and Homeland". Armed with rifles left over from the Russo-Japanese War of 4 decades earlier, with long, grenade-tipped "lunge sticks", molotov cocktails, crude black powder bombs and mortars, swords, spears, and bows, some even with nothing more than sharpened bamboo stakes, their task was to collect payment for Japanese soil by means of massed night suicide attacks, hit-and-run ambushes, and delaying and masking operations in support of uniformed forces.
Had the invasion occurred, the casualties would have been measured in the tens and scores of thousands weekly for months. A million American casualties indeed would have been an improbably fortunate low tally. Japanese casualties likely would have been all but immeasurable ... in the many Millions at the very least. Physical damage to infrastucture and environment would have been unimagineable; orders of magnitude beyond anything ever seen or even contemplated. A proud and ancient nation - its society and culture literally would all but have died.
But that never happened. A half dozen planes, only two of which were armed, on August 6 and again on August 9th, saved history from the awful burden of recounting that tale. Some 80,000 to 90,000 people died at Hiroshima, perhaps half that many at Nagasaki, according to official numbers accepted by both the US and Japanese governments, and by The United Nations. Residual deaths, due to injuries and radiation poisoning, push the toll a bit higher, but still most experts estimate the carnage at well under 200,000. A crime if you wish, but surely a lesser crime than a slaughter and devastation incalculably worse. Sometimes life hands you tough choices. For untold millions, the kinder, gentler choice was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Note: I know there are lots of typos in the above, but its very late, I'm very tired, and I'm going to bed.
