WI: Japanese retained the 9th division in Okinawa until April 1945

trurle

Banned
Thanks everybody for shared opinions.
I will try to summarize:
1) Tactically, the effects of Japanese 9th division on Battle of Okinawa will be more prolonged, bloody battle ending in inevitable Japanese defeat. US casualties (KIA+MIA+WIA) will increase by 10-30 thousands, and battle extended for 10-30 days
2) Strategically, likehood of "Operation Downfall" implementation is further reduced beyond already slim probability IOTL.
3) The 9th division is not the best unit for the battle of Okinawa. More preferable would be a newer formation geared strictly for the defense.

P.S. Seems nobody noticed..9th division had no cavalry or reconnaissance regiment in the order of battle (unlike 7th, 8th, 10th and 12th divisions of the same batch). It also had no veterinary office, indicating less mobility and more emphasis on static defense. This agrees well with the "border guards and security" role it played in 1940-1944. So i suppose the 9th division was geared for the defensive operations from the beginning so it may be more suitable for the realty of Okinawa compared to other Kwantung Army divisions.
 
1) Tactically, the effects of Japanese 9th division on Battle of Okinawa will be more prolonged, bloody battle ending in inevitable Japanese defeat. US casualties (KIA+MIA+WIA) will increase by 10-30 thousands, and battle extended for 10-30 days.

At least. Most likely toward the higher end of those figures.
 
Thanks everybody for shared opinions.
I will try to summarize:
1) Tactically, the effects of Japanese 9th division on Battle of Okinawa will be more prolonged, bloody battle ending in inevitable Japanese defeat. US casualties (KIA+MIA+WIA) will increase by 10-30 thousands, and battle extended for 10-30 days
2) Strategically, likehood of "Operation Downfall" implementation is further reduced beyond already slim probability IOTL.
3) The 9th division is not the best unit for the battle of Okinawa. More preferable would be a newer formation geared strictly for the defense.

P.S. Seems nobody noticed..9th division had no cavalry or reconnaissance regiment in the order of battle (unlike 7th, 8th, 10th and 12th divisions of the same batch). It also had no veterinary office, indicating less mobility and more emphasis on static defense. This agrees well with the "border guards and security" role it played in 1940-1944. So i suppose the 9th division was geared for the defensive operations from the beginning so it may be more suitable for the realty of Okinawa compared to other Kwantung Army divisions.

True, why send a herd of horses to Okinawa. Or long range reconissace units. A extra engineer company would be more useful.
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
True, why send a herd of horses to Okinawa. Or long range reconissace units. A extra engineer company would be more useful.

I suppose once the Americans land and blockade it from supplies, the horses would become useful as meat animals...
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
I don't think this would have been so much of a problem. Any time something like this happened it was a relatively local, small-scale affair, such as the few unauthorized counterattacks on Iwo Jima. Generally speaking IJA troops were disciplined enough so as to not disobey the orders of their superiors. Even the 'fire-eaters' on Okinawa (the aggressive faction led by General Cho, himself a veteran of the China front and partially responsible for the Nanking massacre) didn't try anything unless they got Ushijima's permission first.



That sounds wildly exaggerated. Give one instance in which Japanese soldiers in the midst of a battle mutinied against and killed a superior officer for being 'too cautious.' There were frequent ill-feelings towards protracted defensive fighting, yes, but almost never outright rebellion. Such a thing usually only happened in peacetime or in 'behind the scenes' dramas in which matters of national policy were being settled, not battlefield tactics.

Killed their officer in midst of battle? No

Disobeyed in the face of the enemy and conducted a pointless action that damaged the overall defense? Manila comes to mind. (Yes, the officer in question was IJN, but the mindset was one of the few things that was cross service). An earlier example, and perhaps the most on point was the decision by Colonel Ichiki Kiyonao on Guadalcanal. He had been specifically ordered to land with his first element of 916 troops, send out patrols to determine the American positions and await the rest of his forces (which totaled 2,700 troops) before taking any action. Instead he took his battalion sized element and attacked the Marine line along the Tenaru. He lost 790 men. Almost as serious he was either KIA or committed seppuku (accounts vary) removing himself, the regimental commander. Ichiki was a supposed superstar, he had also been the commander of the IJA element meant to assault Midway. He was rewarded for his folly with a posthumous promotion to Major General.


Not only was disobedience rewarded, it was rewarded after failure.
 
Last edited:
Killed their officer in midst of battle? No

Disobeyed in the face of the enemy and conducted a pointless action that damaged the overall defense? Manila comes to mind. (Yes, the officer in question was IJN, but the mindset was one of the few things that was cross service). An earlier example, and perhaps the most on point was the decision by Colonel Ichiki Kiyonao on Guadalcanal. He had been specifically ordered to land with his first element of 916 troops, send out patrols to determine the American positions and await the rest of his forces (which totaled 2,700 troops) before taking any action. Instead he took his battalion sized element and attacked the Marine line along the Tenaru. He lost 790 men. Almost as serious he was either KIA or committed seppuku (accounts vary) removing himself, the regimental commander. Ichiki was a supposed superstar, he had also been the commander of the IJA element meant to assault Midway. He was rewarded for his folly with a posthumous promotion to Major General.


Not only was disobedience rewarded, it was rewarded after failure.

Ichiki's case was different than Ushijima's (or presumably the junior 9th Division commanders) in that his intelligence with regard to the enemy was extremely faulty (Ichiki grossly underestimated the numbers, preparedness, and dispositions of the American forces) and that his mission was inherently offensive in nature, plus the fact that Guadalcanal was a relatively small, ad-hoc affair compared to 600,000 men slugging it out on Okinawa. Sure it can easily be argued that his decision was foolhardy in light of what happened to him, but based on what he knew at the time his force alone should have been sufficient and had his suppositions been correct the attack could have been justified as 'taking the initiative against an unprepared opponent.' The Japanese may have been devoted to the offensive, perhaps fanatically so when compared to the officers of other armies, but they weren't stupid either. Historically during the first major counterattack on Okinawa (April 12th) the 32nd Army field commanders, realizing that frontal attacks into superior American numbers was a pointless waste, actually held back some of their forces to save them from destruction [Gandt: The Twilight Warriors, pp. 245]. Basically the decisions to attack were made by the 32nd Army staff officers, not the field officers. There were no major offensive actions (barring local counterattacks to stabilize the line) undertaken without the consent of headquarters first, and given the correlation of forces in this particular case these were met with some skepticism and even downright disobedience in favor of the defensive.
 
Top