Again, in history there would also be the tens of thousands of defenseless POWs slaughtered by the Japanese in South East Asia, as per their orders. And the thousands of foreign civilian internees similarly slaughtered there, as per their orders. And hundreds of thousands of additional Chinese civilians starved in China, as per Japanese policies there.
Worst case scenario for US In Downfall?
- Thread starter SadSprinter
- Start date
Again, in history there would also be the tens of thousands of defenseless POWs slaughtered by the Japanese in South East Asia, as per their orders. And the thousands of foreign civilian internees similarly slaughtered there, as per their orders. And hundreds of thousands of additional Chinese civilians starved in China, as per Japanese policies there.
BobTheBarbarian
Banned
Sorry for long delay. Real life frequently finds a means of getting in the way...
To recap for those who are just reading this post, the long and short of it is this: if the Second World War continued past August 1945 and the United States pressed on with its planned attack on the Japanese mainland, the probability that the first stage invasion, Operation Olympic, would have resulted in a military catastrophe was very high.
The main reasons for this were twofold: firstly, US planners were consistently "behind the times" in terms of their assessments of Japanese strength assigned to the defense of Kyushu. This was the case right up until the end of the war - only by the middle of August did the picture become more clear, and even then, in D.M. Giangreco's words, it was still a "serious underestimate." Conversely - and this is seldom emphasized - Japanese planners overestimated the strength and capabilities of the Allied forces, such that there was a two-way intelligence gap. This cannot be repeated enough: Japanese military intelligence correctly predicted not only the timing and sequence of Allied operations, but also the approximate strength assigned to each. When they erred, they tended to be on the side of caution, anticipating greater forces than would be brought to bear against them and on an accelerated timetable. In plain language, the Japanese had "figured us out" and deprived the Allies of operational surprise, calibrating their defensive effort to repel an invasion much stronger than the one we actually planned.[1]
Given this, the forces and means the Americans and their allies assigned to Olympic were totally inadequate to assure victory, particularly air and ground forces. These facts can be readily discerned through superimposing the respective operational plans, OLYMPIC for the Americans and MUTSU-GO for the Japanese, on top of each other.
As we know from the failed raid on Dieppe, control of the air is co-equal with control of the sea for ensuring the success of a landing. Air supremacy, moreover, also frees up the naval forces to do their job against potential surface or undersea threats without worrying about enemy air attacks. I state the obvious here, because at Kyushu the Allies would NOT have possessed air supremacy. Excluding roughly 2,000 heavy bombers assigned to strategic duties, tactical air support for Olympic was to amount to 1,850 land based planes of General Kenney's FEAF based in the Ryukyus (excluding the 2nd Marine Air Wing) and 3,000 single engine planes aboard flat tops of the Third and Fifth Fleets, the latter of which included the British Pacific Fleet [2]. In other words, about 5,000 aircraft in total.
Against this, on the Japanese side, out of 12,684 aircraft of all types in the country as of August 1945, the "Ketsu" Operational plan called for at least 9,000 to be brought into the Kyushu battle as follows:[3]
- 140 for air reconnaissance to detect the approach of the Allied fleet
- 6,225 kamikazes and conventional bombers to target the assault shipping
- 2,000 "air superiority" fighters to occupy the opposing CAP
- 330 conventional bombers flown by elite pilots to attack the carrier task group
- 150 further conventional bombers flown by elite pilots for a night attack on the US escort ships
- 100 paratroops carriers inserting approximately 1,200 commandos at US airfields on Okinawa, inspired by the relative success of a small-scale sortie months earlier
The duration of all this was expected to be just 10 days. As can be seen, the Japanese would have possessed a numerical advantage of roughly 2 : 1 overall in tactical aircraft. Furthermore, if we consider that realistically only allied fighters matter in this comparison (bombers don't do CAP), then in fact the actual ratio would be about 4 : 1. Against such odds, American combat air patrol would be incapable of stopping the deluge of attacking planes, and the fleet would suffer enormous damage as a consequence.
IGHQ devised this plan based on an inventory of 8,500 serviceable aircraft in July 1945, to which it was hoped an additional 2,000 could be added by the time of the invasion.[4] Reserves of aviation fuel, though exceedingly scarce, were adequate to carry out the above plan: the strategic stockpile set apart for the decisive battle amounted to 190,000 barrels for the Army and 126,000 barrels for the Navy. By July 1945 the total inventory of aviation fuel in the Japanese mainland comprised 1,156,000 barrels. As a means of visualizing this in action, the entire three month period from April to June 1945 burned 604,000 barrels within Japan's inner zone, including the "Kikusui" operations at Okinawa. Despite this, consumption of fuel actually decreased 132,000 barrels from the previous quarter and 201,000 barrels from the one before that, owing to shortening distances. At Kyushu, the battlefield would be Japan itself, flight times would be short, and patterns of approach highly variable. As was the case in the Philippines, the mountainous coastline would protect attacking aircraft from being discovered on radar until they were very close to the invasion fleet.[5]
From the experience at Okinawa, the loss or expenditure of 1,430 bombers and kamikaze aircraft by the Japanese Army and Navy caused about 10,000 casualties, half of them deaths, to American and British forces, or about 7 casualties per Japanese aircraft committed. If, based on the above factors, the Japanese improved their performance at Kyushu, it could be expected that losses at sea could tally up to many tens of thousands, effectively crippling the US Sixth Army before it even got ashore. This alone would be enough to put the invasion in jeopardy, and it doesn't even take into account operations by remaining IJN fleet elements such as submarines, destroyers, or fast attack craft. Unfortunately, the situation that would have greeted the Sixth Army on the ground was nearly as bad.
To oppose the 700,000 to 800,000 soldiers and Marines of the Sixth Army (of whom only about 600,000 would be actual "ground troops"), the Japanese Imperial Army planned to gather 900,000 men at the conclusion of their mobilization (already in its final stage), to be bolstered to 990,000 during the actual invasion through the transfer of 4 more divisions across the Shimonoseki strait from Chugoku. This does not even consider the large amount of Naval personnel present, who, as in the Philippines, Okinawa, and elsewhere, would have been inevitably pressed into service. As already mentioned, the topography of Japan and capabilities of the Allied forces meant that it was easy for IGHQ to guess the location, timing, and approximate strength of the expected Allied blows. Rather than the three-pronged flanking attack against only a portion of the Japanese Army anticipated by US planners, the Sixth Army was essentially going to make three frontal assaults straight into the teeth of an enemy that would have outnumbered it roughly 2 to 1 on the ground. The 57th Army in south-east Kyushu alone, for instance, comprised some 300,000 men, 2,000 vehicles, and 300 tanks.[12] By itself, this corresponds almost completely to what General MacArthur initially believed would be present in all of Kyushu by November 1945.
Unlike in other regions of Japan, the Sixteenth Area Army's preparations in Kyushu were well-progressed by the time of Japan's surrender in August: even though stocks of equipment and ammunition were strained by the rapid expansion of personnel strength, all forces were to be fully outfitted by October 1945 (and the Kanto Plain's Twelfth Area Army - by spring 1946)[11]. Because of this, American troops, badly battered by Japanese bombers before disembarkation at sea, would have landed ashore against an enemy fully expecting them and present in much greater strength than anticipated; indeed, in greater strength than had been previously encountered anywhere during the Pacific War. In the close-in, mountainous country, where US advantages in mobility and firepower are minimized, the combat would have taken on a savage, personal nature, conducted "at the distance a man can throw a grenade." Although "permanent" coastal fortifications were relatively sparse, there was no 'crust' to be broken (like with the German Atlantikwall), but a solid core spanning the entirety of southern Kyushu. American forces, who had no preconceptions of any of this, would have thrown themselves into a meat grinder. Even if they managed to overcome the initial defenses and withstand the enemy's counterattacks, the presence of Japanese forces dug into the mountains of northern Kyushu would have presented a constant danger through to the end of hostilities, as was the case in Italy and Korea.
There is one more important factor to consider: the weather. As mentioned previously, Typhoon Louise was set to batter the staging grounds on Okinawa in October, scarcely a month before the planned invasion. The damage done by this was estimated to set the landings, originally scheduled for 1 November, back to December at the earliest, which would not only have required a whole new analysis of weather and other environmental conditions but also would have afforded General Yokoyama's defenders even more precious time to prepare. Incalculable too would have been the psychological boost to the Japanese as a whole at the sight of the "divine winds" coming to their aid once again, and the damages done as a result of fighting elsewhere in Asia and by Japanese atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war (POWs). Further storms in the spring of 1946 (Typhoon Barbara) would have presented additional challenges.
In other words, to restate Major Arens' conclusion earlier in this thread:
I emphasize again, there is no credible scholarship anywhere in the world who can seriously claim that an invasion of mainland Japan would have been anything short of a catastrophe; a savage climax to the most horrible of all man's wars. It would not have been easy, far from it, and its ramifications would have undoubtedly lent themselves to the creation of a world radically different from the one we see today.
Some tables ---
Table 1: Japanese estimate of Allied air strength and the planned reality, July 1945[6]
Japanese Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allied Plan
Land Based . . . . . 6,000* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000
Carrier " . . 3,300-3,800* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000
* Estimate for land-based craft: 1,500 B-29, 1,400 other heavy bombers, 1,100 medium bombers, 2,000 fighters
* Estimate for carrier-based craft: 2,600 to 3,100 USN and 700 RN
Table 2: Japanese estimate of Allied invasion fleet and planned reality, July 1945[7][8]
USN
Carriers (all types). . 50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
Battleships . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Cruisers . . . . . . . . . 54 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
DDs and DEs . . . . . 330 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .442
RN
Carriers (all types). . 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Battleships . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
Cruisers . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
DDs and DEs . . . . . . 40. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
Table 3: Japanese estimate of Allied ground forces and planned reality, July 1945[9][10]
Honshu . . . . . . . 30-50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38-40
Figure: Japanese dispositions and counterattack plan for Ariake Bay, 57th Army
[1] - Giangreco p. xx
[2] - Allen and Polmar p. 299, Skates p. 170, Sutherland p.9
[3] - JM-85 pp. 19-21
[4] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur vol. 2. ch.2 note 100
[5] - Giangreco p. 80
[6] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur vol. 2 part.2 ch.19 p. 639, notes 101 and 102
[7] - same as above
[8] - Sutherland p.9
[9] - Giangreco p. 82, Homeland Operations Record p. 75, 82
[10] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur, JM-85
[11] - "Olympic vs Ketsu-Go" Marine Corps Gazette 1965
[12] - Drea "In service of the Emperor" p. 148
To recap for those who are just reading this post, the long and short of it is this: if the Second World War continued past August 1945 and the United States pressed on with its planned attack on the Japanese mainland, the probability that the first stage invasion, Operation Olympic, would have resulted in a military catastrophe was very high.
The main reasons for this were twofold: firstly, US planners were consistently "behind the times" in terms of their assessments of Japanese strength assigned to the defense of Kyushu. This was the case right up until the end of the war - only by the middle of August did the picture become more clear, and even then, in D.M. Giangreco's words, it was still a "serious underestimate." Conversely - and this is seldom emphasized - Japanese planners overestimated the strength and capabilities of the Allied forces, such that there was a two-way intelligence gap. This cannot be repeated enough: Japanese military intelligence correctly predicted not only the timing and sequence of Allied operations, but also the approximate strength assigned to each. When they erred, they tended to be on the side of caution, anticipating greater forces than would be brought to bear against them and on an accelerated timetable. In plain language, the Japanese had "figured us out" and deprived the Allies of operational surprise, calibrating their defensive effort to repel an invasion much stronger than the one we actually planned.[1]
Given this, the forces and means the Americans and their allies assigned to Olympic were totally inadequate to assure victory, particularly air and ground forces. These facts can be readily discerned through superimposing the respective operational plans, OLYMPIC for the Americans and MUTSU-GO for the Japanese, on top of each other.
As we know from the failed raid on Dieppe, control of the air is co-equal with control of the sea for ensuring the success of a landing. Air supremacy, moreover, also frees up the naval forces to do their job against potential surface or undersea threats without worrying about enemy air attacks. I state the obvious here, because at Kyushu the Allies would NOT have possessed air supremacy. Excluding roughly 2,000 heavy bombers assigned to strategic duties, tactical air support for Olympic was to amount to 1,850 land based planes of General Kenney's FEAF based in the Ryukyus (excluding the 2nd Marine Air Wing) and 3,000 single engine planes aboard flat tops of the Third and Fifth Fleets, the latter of which included the British Pacific Fleet [2]. In other words, about 5,000 aircraft in total.
Against this, on the Japanese side, out of 12,684 aircraft of all types in the country as of August 1945, the "Ketsu" Operational plan called for at least 9,000 to be brought into the Kyushu battle as follows:[3]
- 140 for air reconnaissance to detect the approach of the Allied fleet
- 6,225 kamikazes and conventional bombers to target the assault shipping
- 2,000 "air superiority" fighters to occupy the opposing CAP
- 330 conventional bombers flown by elite pilots to attack the carrier task group
- 150 further conventional bombers flown by elite pilots for a night attack on the US escort ships
- 100 paratroops carriers inserting approximately 1,200 commandos at US airfields on Okinawa, inspired by the relative success of a small-scale sortie months earlier
The duration of all this was expected to be just 10 days. As can be seen, the Japanese would have possessed a numerical advantage of roughly 2 : 1 overall in tactical aircraft. Furthermore, if we consider that realistically only allied fighters matter in this comparison (bombers don't do CAP), then in fact the actual ratio would be about 4 : 1. Against such odds, American combat air patrol would be incapable of stopping the deluge of attacking planes, and the fleet would suffer enormous damage as a consequence.
IGHQ devised this plan based on an inventory of 8,500 serviceable aircraft in July 1945, to which it was hoped an additional 2,000 could be added by the time of the invasion.[4] Reserves of aviation fuel, though exceedingly scarce, were adequate to carry out the above plan: the strategic stockpile set apart for the decisive battle amounted to 190,000 barrels for the Army and 126,000 barrels for the Navy. By July 1945 the total inventory of aviation fuel in the Japanese mainland comprised 1,156,000 barrels. As a means of visualizing this in action, the entire three month period from April to June 1945 burned 604,000 barrels within Japan's inner zone, including the "Kikusui" operations at Okinawa. Despite this, consumption of fuel actually decreased 132,000 barrels from the previous quarter and 201,000 barrels from the one before that, owing to shortening distances. At Kyushu, the battlefield would be Japan itself, flight times would be short, and patterns of approach highly variable. As was the case in the Philippines, the mountainous coastline would protect attacking aircraft from being discovered on radar until they were very close to the invasion fleet.[5]
From the experience at Okinawa, the loss or expenditure of 1,430 bombers and kamikaze aircraft by the Japanese Army and Navy caused about 10,000 casualties, half of them deaths, to American and British forces, or about 7 casualties per Japanese aircraft committed. If, based on the above factors, the Japanese improved their performance at Kyushu, it could be expected that losses at sea could tally up to many tens of thousands, effectively crippling the US Sixth Army before it even got ashore. This alone would be enough to put the invasion in jeopardy, and it doesn't even take into account operations by remaining IJN fleet elements such as submarines, destroyers, or fast attack craft. Unfortunately, the situation that would have greeted the Sixth Army on the ground was nearly as bad.
To oppose the 700,000 to 800,000 soldiers and Marines of the Sixth Army (of whom only about 600,000 would be actual "ground troops"), the Japanese Imperial Army planned to gather 900,000 men at the conclusion of their mobilization (already in its final stage), to be bolstered to 990,000 during the actual invasion through the transfer of 4 more divisions across the Shimonoseki strait from Chugoku. This does not even consider the large amount of Naval personnel present, who, as in the Philippines, Okinawa, and elsewhere, would have been inevitably pressed into service. As already mentioned, the topography of Japan and capabilities of the Allied forces meant that it was easy for IGHQ to guess the location, timing, and approximate strength of the expected Allied blows. Rather than the three-pronged flanking attack against only a portion of the Japanese Army anticipated by US planners, the Sixth Army was essentially going to make three frontal assaults straight into the teeth of an enemy that would have outnumbered it roughly 2 to 1 on the ground. The 57th Army in south-east Kyushu alone, for instance, comprised some 300,000 men, 2,000 vehicles, and 300 tanks.[12] By itself, this corresponds almost completely to what General MacArthur initially believed would be present in all of Kyushu by November 1945.
Unlike in other regions of Japan, the Sixteenth Area Army's preparations in Kyushu were well-progressed by the time of Japan's surrender in August: even though stocks of equipment and ammunition were strained by the rapid expansion of personnel strength, all forces were to be fully outfitted by October 1945 (and the Kanto Plain's Twelfth Area Army - by spring 1946)[11]. Because of this, American troops, badly battered by Japanese bombers before disembarkation at sea, would have landed ashore against an enemy fully expecting them and present in much greater strength than anticipated; indeed, in greater strength than had been previously encountered anywhere during the Pacific War. In the close-in, mountainous country, where US advantages in mobility and firepower are minimized, the combat would have taken on a savage, personal nature, conducted "at the distance a man can throw a grenade." Although "permanent" coastal fortifications were relatively sparse, there was no 'crust' to be broken (like with the German Atlantikwall), but a solid core spanning the entirety of southern Kyushu. American forces, who had no preconceptions of any of this, would have thrown themselves into a meat grinder. Even if they managed to overcome the initial defenses and withstand the enemy's counterattacks, the presence of Japanese forces dug into the mountains of northern Kyushu would have presented a constant danger through to the end of hostilities, as was the case in Italy and Korea.
There is one more important factor to consider: the weather. As mentioned previously, Typhoon Louise was set to batter the staging grounds on Okinawa in October, scarcely a month before the planned invasion. The damage done by this was estimated to set the landings, originally scheduled for 1 November, back to December at the earliest, which would not only have required a whole new analysis of weather and other environmental conditions but also would have afforded General Yokoyama's defenders even more precious time to prepare. Incalculable too would have been the psychological boost to the Japanese as a whole at the sight of the "divine winds" coming to their aid once again, and the damages done as a result of fighting elsewhere in Asia and by Japanese atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war (POWs). Further storms in the spring of 1946 (Typhoon Barbara) would have presented additional challenges.
In other words, to restate Major Arens' conclusion earlier in this thread:
"The intelligence estimates of the Japanese forces and their capabilities on Kyushu, for Operation Olympic, were so inaccurate that an amphibious assault by the V Amphibious Corps would have failed ... If Operation Olympic had been executed, as planned, on 1 November 1945, it would have been the largest bloodbath in American history. Although American forces had superior fire power and were better trained and equipped than the Japanese soldier, the close-in, fanatical combat between infantrymen would have been devastating to both sides."
I emphasize again, there is no credible scholarship anywhere in the world who can seriously claim that an invasion of mainland Japan would have been anything short of a catastrophe; a savage climax to the most horrible of all man's wars. It would not have been easy, far from it, and its ramifications would have undoubtedly lent themselves to the creation of a world radically different from the one we see today.
Some tables ---
Table 1: Japanese estimate of Allied air strength and the planned reality, July 1945[6]
Japanese Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allied Plan
Land Based . . . . . 6,000* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000
Carrier " . . 3,300-3,800* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000
* Estimate for land-based craft: 1,500 B-29, 1,400 other heavy bombers, 1,100 medium bombers, 2,000 fighters
* Estimate for carrier-based craft: 2,600 to 3,100 USN and 700 RN
Table 2: Japanese estimate of Allied invasion fleet and planned reality, July 1945[7][8]
Japanese Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allied Plan
USN
Carriers (all types). . 50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
Battleships . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Cruisers . . . . . . . . . 54 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
DDs and DEs . . . . . 330 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .442
RN
Carriers (all types). . 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Battleships . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
Cruisers . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
DDs and DEs . . . . . . 40. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
Table 3: Japanese estimate of Allied ground forces and planned reality, July 1945[9][10]
Japanese Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allied Plan
Kyushu . . . . . . . 15-40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Honshu . . . . . . . 30-50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38-40
Figure: Japanese dispositions and counterattack plan for Ariake Bay, 57th Army
[1] - Giangreco p. xx
[2] - Allen and Polmar p. 299, Skates p. 170, Sutherland p.9
[3] - JM-85 pp. 19-21
[4] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur vol. 2. ch.2 note 100
[5] - Giangreco p. 80
[6] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur vol. 2 part.2 ch.19 p. 639, notes 101 and 102
[7] - same as above
[8] - Sutherland p.9
[9] - Giangreco p. 82, Homeland Operations Record p. 75, 82
[10] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur, JM-85
[11] - "Olympic vs Ketsu-Go" Marine Corps Gazette 1965
[12] - Drea "In service of the Emperor" p. 148
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Wow, that was-informative.
Thank you for that post, it was an incredibly interesting read. I could imagine the social affects for the Japanese and the US after the war could create a world that would dwarf the Cold War psychology that was just emerging.
The prospect of yet another Divine Wind saving Japan alone would be enough to completely change the Japanese psyche into something unrecgonisable today. If your predicted version of events did happen, what could have been the effect on hostilities with the USSR?
Thank you for that post, it was an incredibly interesting read. I could imagine the social affects for the Japanese and the US after the war could create a world that would dwarf the Cold War psychology that was just emerging.
The prospect of yet another Divine Wind saving Japan alone would be enough to completely change the Japanese psyche into something unrecgonisable today. If your predicted version of events did happen, what could have been the effect on hostilities with the USSR?
By this reasoning, naturally, the Luftwaffe should have won the Battle of Britain.
The Germans had numerical superiority. They had a much larger numbers of bombers, and the British bombers, on their part, weren't doing CAP missions.
So how did the British win? The main factor, apart from many other things, was that they had an integrated air defense system, which also meant they had a very good picture of the enemy's strikes. They had radars. They knew when and where and how many enemy airplanes were coming.
The Germans barely knew that there were British air bases out there, and at least, in comparison with the Japanese situation in this ATL 1945, the British airfields couldn't move around at 20 knots.
What might give the Japanese some vague idea of where the enemy task forces were? A puny 140 ageing recon aircraft. Flying into the enemy's radar-assisted CAPs.
I also notice how part of the Japanese forces are assigned "elite" pilots. That's a way of elegantly implying that most Japanese pilots at this time were not very experienced, and that actually all the recent trainees could barely fly their aircraft, considering the shortage of fuel that was hamstringing the training.
---
On another aspect. In the spring of 1945, General Heinrici made a correct assessment of where the Soviet onslaught would come. He even overestimated the Soviet strength, while the Soviets were underestimating the German strength.
But sometimes, when you lay with a broken leg in the middle of the road, even if you see the heavy truck coming at you, and even if you expect it to be a 18-wheeler while it isn't, and even if the truck driver thinks you're a crippled cow while you're a human with a broken leg - there isn't much that you can do to jump out of the truck's way.
McPherson
Banned
Sorry for long delay. Real life frequently finds a means of getting in the way...
To recap for those who are just reading this post, the long and short of it is this: if the Second World War continued past August 1945 and the United States pressed on with its planned attack on the Japanese mainland, the probability that the first stage invasion, Operation Olympic, would have resulted in a military catastrophe was very high.
The main reasons for this were twofold: firstly, US planners were consistently "behind the times" in terms of their assessments of Japanese strength assigned to the defense of Kyushu. This was the case right up until the end of the war - only by the middle of August did the picture become more clear, and even then, in D.M. Giangreco's words, it was still a "serious underestimate." Conversely - and this is seldom emphasized - Japanese planners overestimated the strength and capabilities of the Allied forces, such that there was a two-way intelligence gap. This cannot be repeated enough: Japanese military intelligence correctly predicted not only the timing and sequence of Allied operations, but also the approximate strength assigned to each. When they erred, they tended to be on the side of caution, anticipating greater forces than would be brought to bear against them and on an accelerated timetable. In plain language, the Japanese had "figured us out" and deprived the Allies of operational surprise, calibrating their defensive effort to repel an invasion much stronger than the one we actually planned.[1]
Given this, the forces and means the Americans and their allies assigned to Olympic were totally inadequate to assure victory, particularly air and ground forces. These facts can be readily discerned through superimposing the respective operational plans, OLYMPIC for the Americans and MUTSU-GO for the Japanese, on top of each other.
As we know from the failed raid on Dieppe, control of the air is co-equal with control of the sea for ensuring the success of a landing. Air supremacy, moreover, also frees up the naval forces to do their job against potential surface or undersea threats without worrying about enemy air attacks. I state the obvious here, because at Kyushu the Allies would NOT have possessed air supremacy. Excluding roughly 2,000 heavy bombers assigned to strategic duties, tactical air support for Olympic was to amount to 1,850 land based planes of General Kenney's FEAF based in the Ryukyus (excluding the 2nd Marine Air Wing) and 3,000 single engine planes aboard flat tops of the Third and Fifth Fleets, the latter of which included the British Pacific Fleet [2]. In other words, about 5,000 aircraft in total.
Against this, on the Japanese side, out of 12,684 aircraft of all types in the country as of August 1945, the "Ketsu" Operational plan called for at least 9,000 to be brought into the Kyushu battle as follows:[3]
- 140 for air reconnaissance to detect the approach of the Allied fleet
- 6,225 kamikazes and conventional bombers to target the assault shipping
- 2,000 "air superiority" fighters to occupy the opposing CAP
- 330 conventional bombers flown by elite pilots to attack the carrier task group
- 150 further conventional bombers flown by elite pilots for a night attack on the US escort ships
- 100 paratroops carriers inserting approximately 1,200 commandos at US airfields on Okinawa, inspired by the relative success of a small-scale sortie months earlier
The duration of all this was expected to be just 10 days. As can be seen, the Japanese would have possessed a numerical advantage of roughly 2 : 1 overall in tactical aircraft. Furthermore, if we consider that realistically only allied fighters matter in this comparison (bombers don't do CAP), then in fact the actual ratio would be about 4 : 1. Against such odds, American combat air patrol would be incapable of stopping the deluge of attacking planes, and the fleet would suffer enormous damage as a consequence.
IGHQ devised this plan based on an inventory of 8,500 serviceable aircraft in July 1945, to which it was hoped an additional 2,000 could be added by the time of the invasion.[4] Reserves of aviation fuel, though exceedingly scarce, were adequate to carry out the above plan: the strategic stockpile set apart for the decisive battle amounted to 190,000 barrels for the Army and 126,000 barrels for the Navy. By July 1945 the total inventory of aviation fuel in the Japanese mainland comprised 1,156,000 barrels. As a means of visualizing this in action, the entire three month period from April to June 1945 burned 604,000 barrels within Japan's inner zone, including the "Kikusui" operations at Okinawa. Despite this, consumption of fuel actually decreased 132,000 barrels from the previous quarter and 201,000 barrels from the one before that, owing to shortening distances. At Kyushu, the battlefield would be Japan itself, flight times would be short, and patterns of approach highly variable. As was the case in the Philippines, the mountainous coastline would protect attacking aircraft from being discovered on radar until they were very close to the invasion fleet.[5]
From the experience at Okinawa, the loss or expenditure of 1,430 bombers and kamikaze aircraft by the Japanese Army and Navy caused about 10,000 casualties, half of them deaths, to American and British forces, or about 7 casualties per Japanese aircraft committed. If, based on the above factors, the Japanese improved their performance at Kyushu, it could be expected that losses at sea could tally up to many tens of thousands, effectively crippling the US Sixth Army before it even got ashore. This alone would be enough to put the invasion in jeopardy, and it doesn't even take into account operations by remaining IJN fleet elements such as submarines, destroyers, or fast attack craft. Unfortunately, the situation that would have greeted the Sixth Army on the ground was nearly as bad.
To oppose the 700,000 to 800,000 soldiers and Marines of the Sixth Army (of whom only about 600,000 would be actual "ground troops"), the Japanese Imperial Army planned to gather 900,000 men at the conclusion of their mobilization (already in its final stage), to be bolstered to 990,000 during the actual invasion through the transfer of 4 more divisions across the Shimonoseki strait from Chugoku. This does not even consider the large amount of Naval personnel present, who, as in the Philippines, Okinawa, and elsewhere, would have been inevitably pressed into service. As already mentioned, the topography of Japan and capabilities of the Allied forces meant that it was easy for IGHQ to guess the location, timing, and approximate strength of the expected Allied blows. Rather than the three-pronged flanking attack against only a portion of the Japanese Army anticipated by US planners, the Sixth Army was essentially going to make three frontal assaults straight into the teeth of an enemy that would have outnumbered it roughly 2 to 1 on the ground. The 57th Army in south-east Kyushu alone, for instance, comprised some 300,000 men, 2,000 vehicles, and 300 tanks.[12] By itself, this corresponds almost completely to what General MacArthur initially believed would be present in all of Kyushu by November 1945.
Unlike in other regions of Japan, the Sixteenth Area Army's preparations in Kyushu were well-progressed by the time of Japan's surrender in August: even though stocks of equipment and ammunition were strained by the rapid expansion of personnel strength, all forces were to be fully outfitted by October 1945 (and the Kanto Plain's Twelfth Area Army - by spring 1946)[11]. Because of this, American troops, badly battered by Japanese bombers before disembarkation at sea, would have landed ashore against an enemy fully expecting them and present in much greater strength than anticipated; indeed, in greater strength than had been previously encountered anywhere during the Pacific War. In the close-in, mountainous country, where US advantages in mobility and firepower are minimized, the combat would have taken on a savage, personal nature, conducted "at the distance a man can throw a grenade." Although "permanent" coastal fortifications were relatively sparse, there was no 'crust' to be broken (like with the German Atlantikwall), but a solid core spanning the entirety of southern Kyushu. American forces, who had no preconceptions of any of this, would have thrown themselves into a meat grinder. Even if they managed to overcome the initial defenses and withstand the enemy's counterattacks, the presence of Japanese forces dug into the mountains of northern Kyushu would have presented a constant danger through to the end of hostilities, as was the case in Italy and Korea.
There is one more important factor to consider: the weather. As mentioned previously, Typhoon Louise was set to batter the staging grounds on Okinawa in October, scarcely a month before the planned invasion. The damage done by this was estimated to set the landings, originally scheduled for 1 November, back to December at the earliest, which would not only have required a whole new analysis of weather and other environmental conditions but also would have afforded General Yokoyama's defenders even more precious time to prepare. Incalculable too would have been the psychological boost to the Japanese as a whole at the sight of the "divine winds" coming to their aid once again, and the damages done as a result of fighting elsewhere in Asia and by Japanese atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war (POWs). Further storms in the spring of 1946 (Typhoon Barbara) would have presented additional challenges.
In other words, to restate Major Arens' conclusion earlier in this thread:
"The intelligence estimates of the Japanese forces and their capabilities on Kyushu, for Operation Olympic, were so inaccurate that an amphibious assault by the V Amphibious Corps would have failed ... If Operation Olympic had been executed, as planned, on 1 November 1945, it would have been the largest bloodbath in American history. Although American forces had superior fire power and were better trained and equipped than the Japanese soldier, the close-in, fanatical combat between infantrymen would have been devastating to both sides."
I emphasize again, there is no credible scholarship anywhere in the world who can seriously claim that an invasion of mainland Japan would have been anything short of a catastrophe; a savage climax to the most horrible of all man's wars. It would not have been easy, far from it, and its ramifications would have undoubtedly lent themselves to the creation of a world radically different from the one we see today.
Some tables ---
Table 1: Japanese estimate of Allied air strength and the planned reality, July 1945[6]
Jap Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allied Plan
Land Based . . . . . 6,000* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000
Carrier " . . 3,300-3,800* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000
* Estimate for land-based craft: 1,500 B-29, 1,400 other heavy bombers, 1,100 medium bombers, 2,000 fighters
* Estimate for carrier-based craft: 2,600 to 3,100 USN and 700 RN
Table 2: Japanese estimate of Allied invasion fleet and planned reality, July 1945[7][8]
USNJap Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allied Plan
Carriers (all types). . 50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
Battleships . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Cruisers . . . . . . . . . 54 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
DDs and DEs . . . . . 330 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .442
RN
Carriers (all types). . 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Battleships . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
Cruisers . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
DDs and DEs . . . . . . 40. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . n/a
Table 3: Japanese estimate of Allied ground forces and planned reality, July 1945[9][10]
Jap Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allied Plan
Kyushu . . . . . . . 15-40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
Honshu . . . . . . . 30-50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38-40
Figure: Japanese dispositions and counterattack plan for Ariake Bay, 57th Army
[1] - Giangreco p. xx
[2] - Allen and Polmar p. 299, Skates p. 170, Sutherland p.9
[3] - JM-85 pp. 19-21
[4] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur vol. 2. ch.2 note 100
[5] - Giangreco p. 80
[6] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur vol. 2 part.2 ch.19 p. 639, notes 101 and 102
[7] - same as above
[8] - Sutherland p.9
[9] - Giangreco p. 82, Homeland Operations Record p. 75, 82
[10] - Reports of Gen. MacArthur, JM-85
[11] - "Olympic vs Ketsu-Go" Marine Corps Gazette 1965
[12] - Drea "In service of the Emperor" p. 148
Several comments;
1. After the Halsey Typhoons, the USN had stepped up its north Pacific meteorological surveillance. They were not about to be caught a third time.
2. 5,000 nor 15,000, the Japanese never were able to co-ordinate or mass kamikaze attacks beyond 200 or 300 machines at a time. If they could have massed 2000 machines at Okinawa (and they wanted to) they would have. Therefore, it could be expected at worst a 2x kind of bombardment upon the USN. The USN took that beating for months.
3. The US was not standing still. Updates to Olympic included robot cruise missiles, a standing CAP, massed poison gas attacks against suspected enemy concentrations (especially airfields), and artillery bombardment that would have made WW I look like a day in the MacArthur Park (PUN!). Firepower has a quality all of its own.
4. Japanese morale was "brittle". All the Americans have to do is get ashore and prove they can stay. Once that happens, the Japanese face two choices; national suicide or surrender. This is not a numbers game. It is a "we're here and there's nothing you can do about it game." There was never any doubt short of nuclear weapons, and the Japanese do not have them, that the US was going to get ashore.
Proof? Marianas Islands. The US faced exactly these kinds of long numerical odds and they won.
BobTheBarbarian
Banned
This is a very misinformed comparison. At Kyushu the Americans would be at the end of their operational range, not the Japanese; for them fuel would not be a concern. The British also didn't have to cover an invasion fleet - their entire country was the target.
You understand how air reconnaissance works? During the Battle of Midway the US utilized 31 PBYs to scan this entire cordon:
Individual aircraft were more than capable of keeping track of large areas of ocean, with such a massive invasion fleet as the one the US planned for Kyushu, it would be impossible to avoid detection and the Japanese would easily see it coming.
Moreover, your 140 ageing recon craft were composed of 80 "Myrt," 50 G3M "Nell," and 10 flying boats. All of these were very modern, high-speed aircraft capable of flying over very great distances. In particular, the Myrt was faster than most western fighters of the period.
While it is true that the majority of Japanese pilots by that point were not very skilled, Giangreco notes that the Navy alone still had 2,450 rated high enough for night missions and 1,750 for dusk missions. Another 2,000 Army pilots had at least 70 hours of flight experience by the time of surrender.
But Zhukov's Soviets didn't have to launch an amphibious assault on Berlin and had a 10 to 1 advantage over Heinrici; the comparison is ridiculous.
1. The estimate of 30 to 45 days' delay was made after the typhoon historically passed through. It is not my speculation
2. The various phases of Operation Kikusui (Okinawa Kamikaze campaign) involved between 300 and 900 aircraft. However, the forces committed were only the 6th Air Army and 5th Air Fleet - at Kyushu, virtually all (75%) of remaining national air strength would be thrown into battle. Since the Japanese operational plan called for 10,000 aircraft in 10 days, the "tempo" would be 1,000 aircraft per day. At Okinawa, for each Japanese aircraft lost, there were 7 American casualties . . .
3. Both sides had "new tricks." For instance, US radars had difficulty - ironically - in picking up ancient stringbag biplanes, especially at night. These attackers had a perfect record at Okinawa: on two consecutive nights, two destroyers, Callaghan and Cassin Young were knocked out by 'stealth' kamikazes. And massive artillery bombardment was only good for so much, see Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Tarawa, etc.
4. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Japanese Army's morale would have collapsed, especially in defense of the Homeland. Even in places such as Manchuria, where the situation was much more decrepit and we have ample diary grumblings about being "human bullets" and "poor orphans" entire units still fought to the death and only surrendered when ordered to do so; in some cases (Hutou Fortress) even these orders were disobeyed.
And how was the Mariana campaign remotely comparable to the Japanese mainland? The US had massive advantages on the ground and in the air, which they would not have on Kyushu. Even then, on Saipan alone V Amphibious Corps suffered 25% casualties; the battle was so horrible that, prior to Iwo and Okinawa, it set a new "worst case scenario" benchmark as to what we could expect in the Japanese mainland.
McPherson
Banned
The delay was factored in.
Do not agree. First the Japanese had trouble FINDING the Americans with fully half of the kamikaze planes getting lost, hence the need for guide-on flight leaders. This was learned late, but once the Americans caught on, the roving CAPs pounced on these guys and blasted them first making the followers confused and easy prey.
Second, the counter-air mission was specifically tailored as a suppression of enemy air activity mission. Runways were going to be gassed.
Third, while the Japanese claimed to have these aircraft and use them as stated, US post operational findings show maybe 5000 present and airworthy. THAT is why your numbers are highly suspect.
1. Avenger AWACS is entering service.
2. Kill the guide. (Already mentioned.)
3. Two plinks does not a tactic make.
4. Artillery still killed most IJA defenders. And those islands FELL.
That is the Japanese army, and I point out they surrendered under very little duress compared to what Olympic would bring. For example, what happens when the civil population revolts? You are aware that LeMay's bombers drove 10 million Japanese out of the cities by Okinawa, that there were work stoppages, bread riots and that the Japanese were on the edge of mass revolt by July 1945? What happens to Kyushu when the Americans on the ground start driving the Japanese civilian population before them? It won't be what those madmen in Tokyo thought it would be. Human beings break. The Japanese in fact BROKE.
The US faced an enemy in home waters with land based air advantage, base advantages and logistics advantages and with near numerical parity; air, ground and sea. Yet; once battle was joined, an enemy on defense lost.
Americans:
7 fleet carriers
8 light carriers
7 battleships
8 heavy cruisers
13 light cruisers
68 destroyers
28 submarines
~900 carrier aircraft
Japanese
5 fleet carriers
4 light carriers
5 battleships
11 heavy cruisers
2 light cruisers
31 destroyers
24 submarines
6 oilers
~450 carrier aircraft
~300 land-based aircraft
Casualties and losses
Americans
1 battleship damaged
123 aircraft destroyed
109 dead
Japanese
3 fleet carriers sunk
2 oilers sunk
550–645 aircraft destroyed
6 other ships damaged
2,987 dead (estimate)
That was at sea.
On land it was Saipan that was bad. Much of that was the fault of the American army's 27th Inf Div. which bungled its sector and prolonged the campaign for 3 weeks instead of the 1 it should have taken. The Japanese civilian population did not fight. They committed suicide, a lot of them, and they RAN away from the fighting. As for the IJA, they died in their caves and were unable to maneuver or push the Americans back. Note that.
Kyushu was intended to be occupied up to a stop line after which the Americans would seal it off and murder any Japanese who tried to approach the line. Would it work? Odds being approximately equal with the Americans having an 8x firepower advantage and the Japanese only stockpiled for 3 weeks food and ammunition? What the hello do you think?
100,000 American casualties. Japanese DEAD? In the millions.
Worst case scenario is if the Japanese develop an understanding of U.S.- Soviet complex relations, and try to use this through diplomatic means, while the war goes on.
McPherson
Banned
One last error;
Okinawa to Kyushu is 970km.
Fuel is not a concern.
Range is not a concern.
Time on station is not a concern.
for the Americans.
This is not the 20 minutes over London for an Me 109.
This is fighter sweeps to the Kanto plains and beyond by the P-51 and NO Japanese air opposition. *(RTL).
BobTheBarbarian
Banned
It was most emphatically not. 1 November had been the target date for "X-Day" since at least May 1945; the typhoon did not occur until October.
Well, per Giangreco, out of 1,809 sorties logged by the 3rd, 5th, and 10th Air Fleets during the campaign, 879 were by planes that returned to base after not finding a target or completing an alternative mission. Adding in 500 Army planes actually lost as well, Japanese a/c losses at Okinawa totalled 1,430. The result of all of this was still 10,000 American casualties and 36 ships sunk. Here there are nearly 10,000 aircraft committed with several key advantages over the Kikisui suiciders enumerated below and an alternate attack plan that emphasized transports over surface fleet elements. If even a portion of these made it to target the result would have been disaster.
Furthermore, I don't know where your 5000 number came from: maybe it is for the Navy only, or only included airworthy fighters, bombers, torpedo craft, etc. In July 1945 IGHQ tallied 8,500 serviceable aircraft of all types throughout the whole country and anticipated (but didn't count on) another 2,000 being ready in the fall.
Additionally, neutralizing camouflaged airfields - as I'm sure you yourself are aware - is much easier said than done, and in any regard the use of gas had yet to be given the go-ahead.
1. The Avengers (4 engined bombers were also being used in this role) would have their hands full. Unlike at Okinawa enemy flight paths would be highly variable and the attackers themselves would be masked by the mountainous coastline until they were very near the assembly areas.
2. Still didn't prevent 10,000 casualties at Okinawa
3. But it was a foretaste of what was to come: for defense of the Home Islands the IGHQ arranged for the wholesale conversion of thousands of transports and trainers into "special attack" craft. Per Giangreco again there were 5,400 aircraft in these categories that could be classified as "radar resistant" because of their wood and fabric construction.
4.. . With tens of thousands of American casualties to go with. Preliminary bombardment by ships and aircraft, no matter how intense or protracted, proved incapable of smashing Japanese defenses; only ground troops could do that. Kyushu too was not just some small island - in the past the Japanese defenders had no "rear area" - every square inch of Saipan, Okinawa, etc was under the guns of the US Navy, and of course the US never had to contend with a million-plus Japanese ground army.
They surrendered per the Emperor's orders. Had Hirohito not stepped in, the result would have been the same as it was elsewhere. This isn't just my opinion, both the US Army and Marines, in their official publications on the subject, say the same thing (I can link these too if you want).
Name even one instance of large scale strikes or bread riots. You can't, because they didn't happen. The Japanese population was by and large unified behind the armed forces, which spoke for the Emperor. As we discussed earlier in the thread, Japanese noncombatants were so thoroughly brainwashed that even on remote places far from the metropolis they were willing to die by the tens, even hundreds of thousands. How would they behave when it was the 'sacred soil' itself that was menaced?
It was also a conventional fight between carrier groups in which the US possessed an absolute quantitative and qualitative advantage. At Kyushu the US would maintain its advantage in quality, but would be facing an immense quantitative disadvantage - 4 to 1 in the air and 2 to 1 on land. There was no precedent for this anywhere, and as was seen in the Philippines and Okinawa, kamikaze tactics had already proved themselves devastating even with unskilled pilots and antiquated planes.
The Japanese operational plan called for 6 months of ammunition and 4 months of fuel and provisions. . .
As for casualties, General Willoughby's "Sinister Ratio" essentially held that there would be one American casualty for every Japanese defender (based on experience during the latter stages of the war, esp. Okinawa). This corresponds more or less with estimates like Maj Arens' - about 500,000 casualties for the Americans and 2 million for the Japanese - most of whom would be civilians.
(The actual planned replacement stream was to be 100,000 men per month for the Army and 40,000 for the Navy and Marine Corps; General Somervell's Army Service Forces made plans based on approximately 720,000 replacements needed for dead and evacuated wounded through the end of 1946, combined with the other branches of service this corresponds to about 1 million overall - and this was before the intelligence revelations in July and August showed the Japanese defenses to be much stronger than anticipated.)
I can guess the effects of a bloodbath on Kyushu or even Honshu if required: long-term aversion for wars. People would not enlist in the military out of fear of being sent to an inhospitable meatgrinder. No Vietnam, as Kyushu and Honshu would have been it.
In Japan, depending on the final terms of peace, either a surge of leftism in the populace (like WW1 aftermath in Europe), or stubborn opposition to demilitarization if the defense efforts prove to really be heroic.
In Japan, depending on the final terms of peace, either a surge of leftism in the populace (like WW1 aftermath in Europe), or stubborn opposition to demilitarization if the defense efforts prove to really be heroic.
McPherson
Banned
It was factored in.
You notice line 5? Garbage numbers you gave me. I give you back known numbers.
See above. And I remark that US forces found Japanese logistics as early as 1944 were near collapse.
The go-ahead required a presidential order. How was Truman going to decide?
/Hiroshima-58c01f3b5f9b58af5ce94b6e.jpg)
The attack vectors could only come from the north and east and the Japanese have to CLIMB to see where the Americans are. This means they will be tracked and killed.
That was Okinawa. Lessons learned were being applied.
Night attack training requires a lot more skill than day attack training 10 hours for daylight and about 100 hours for night. Where are the Japanese going to get the gas and the pilots? IOW, this is an assertion you make and it is not supported by available evidence.
On an average that is 7 Japanese soldier deaths for every American in ground combat. This is a constant that holds true right through Okinawa. Now add civilians to that death toll caught in the American meatgrinder? How long do the Tokyo maniacs last? Not long.
You better cite them, because the IJN wanted to throw in the towel as soon as Saipan was lost, and the IJA had told the foreign ministry to look for a way out via Russia even before that. That is the history. The US could have their victory through negotiation as soon as August 1944 if the negotiations had started. It was not as if the Japanese were not looking for a way out.
Read Bruce Johnson's "Japanese Food Management during World War II." The Japanese were finished.
And it would have been a naval fight between a US fleet and poorly built badly trained human piloted cruise missiles with nowhere near the effectiveness you assert the Japanese had. It does not fly, to pun on it. The Japanese used their best at Okinawa and it failed. What was left is the bottom of the quality pool in human and mechanical terms, and of that much less than the 10,000 mythical machines claimed.
They did not have it. Refer to the earlier example in the Philippine Islands.
This is not what is reported. Nor what is expected based on battlefield density studies.
Since this was a problem throughout the Pacific campaigns, it is not unexpected that Japanese field expedient fortifications were going to be more extensive. More flame thrower fuel and a lot more bulldozers would be laid on. This too is normal. (SARCASM).
By the end of WW II, it was becoming known that combat effectiveness for infantry was about 100 days sustained action. The US replacement rates were based on those known values and not on "expected deaths or maimings." Besides... if the enemy is done within 30 days, as it appears the food riots would predicate; those numbers become meaningless; don't they?
BobTheBarbarian
Banned
Through what crystal ball?
You notice line 5? Garbage numbers you gave me. I give you back known numbers.
This table is meaningless. Come on McPherson, you know as well as I do that yearly production figures =/= inventory on hand. According to SCAP's final report on the progress of Japanese demobilization (pp. 68-69 of this flipbook), we can see the demobilization bureau accounted for 12,684 military aircraft of all types in the Home Islands and roughly 16,397 in the Empire as a whole. In no way does this refute anything I have said up to this point, and in fact only buttresses my argument.
Additionally, information "painstakingly gathered" on pp. 78-82 of that same booklet reveals Japanese aircraft production from 1941 to 1945 to be 90,526: 59,889 for the Army and 30,637 for the Navy. During the peak year of 1944, 38,788 planes were manufactured.
I see nothing about a source for only 5,000 operational planes, only a History channel-tier general education link about why Japan's air forces couldn't keep up with the US. Not only off-topic, but also completely irrelevant.
Use of poison gas, as Giangreco notes, was Marshall's idea and would have been directed mainly against the beaches and intermediate defenses, not on rear areas. Nevertheless, the Japanese Army - by its own assertion - was well prepared for gas warfare:
"The Army was well equipped against gas attacks by the Allies with masks, suits, antiseptics, etc, in quantities, while the civilian population as a whole was hardly provided for, with no means of counteracting any large-scale warfare."
North, east, west (S. Korea), it wouldn't have mattered - the numbers were too disproportionate. Furthermore, once the invasion fleet took anchor, it would become static: the Japanese would ALWAYS know where it was.
Another terrible fact I found from Giangreco - TF 58's 1,900 first line carrier planes would not have even been at the Kyushu zone of operation at all: they were assigned missions as far as 600 miles to the north, in Honshu. Only two carrier groups were dedicated to suppression efforts in support of the 7th Fleet's CAP - this means that Japan's numerical advantage "in-theater," at least for the first critical part of the operation, wouldn't have been 4 to 1, but closer to 10 to 1.
They would be in for a brutal experience.
All of this is already addressed in posts 123 and 127 of this thread. Specifically with regard to night flying - 2,450 Navy pilots were rated high enough for night missions and 1,750 for dusk missions. 2,000 Army pilots also had at least 70 hours of flying time.
"... Two to two and a half Japanese divisions [could] extract . . . approximately 40,000 American casualties on land. . . This [ratio] affords a completely authentic yardstick to forecast what it would have taken in losses had we gone in shooting."
-- Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, “Occupation of Japan and Japanese Reaction,” Military Review, June 1946, pp. 3-4
The Sixteenth Area Army on Kyushu, excluding 4 immobile divisions in the north, could confront the US Sixth Army with up to 21 division-equivalents, not including naval ground troops or People's "Volunteer" Corps.
Do the math . . .
Not to justify the bombings (they were horrific and the utilitarian logic used to defend them is immoral), but I personally cannot think of any way short of Divine Intervention in which the war could have ended with less loss of life.
"The most often repeated condemnation of American diplomacy in the summer of 1945 is that policy makers understood that a promise to retain the Imperial institution was essential to end the war, and that had the United States communicated such a promise, the Suzuki cabinet would likely have promptly surrendered. The answer to this assertion is enshrined in black and white in the July 22 edition of the Magic Diplomatic Summary. There, American policy makers could read for themselves that Ambassador Sato had advised Foreign Minister Togo that the best terms Japan could hope to secure were unconditional surrender, modified only to the extent that the Imperial institution could be retained. Presented by his own ambassador with this offer, Togo expressly rejected it. Given this, there is no rational prospect that such an offer would have won support from any of the other live members of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War. - (Frank 1999, p. 239)"
"As historian Robert Butow pointed out in 1954, the fate of Japan rested in the hands of only eight men. These were the emperor, his principal advisor Marquis Koichi Kido, and an inner cabinet of the government of Admiral Kantaro Suzuki called the "Big Six": Prime Minister Suzuki, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, Army Minister General Korechika Anami, Navy Minister Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, Chief of the Army General Staff General Yoshijiro Umezu, and Chief of the Navy General Staff Admiral Soemu Toyoda.
There is no record whatsoever that any of these eight men proposed a set of terms or circumstances in which Japan would capitulate prior to Hiroshima. More significantly, none of these men even after the war claimed that there was any set of terms of circumstances that would have prompted Japan to surrender prior to Hiroshima. The evidence available shows that in June, a memorandum from Kido to the emperor proposed that the emperor intervene not to surrender, but to initiate mediation by a third party. The mediation would look to settle the war on terms that echoed the Treaty of Versailles: Japan might have to give up its overseas conquests and experience disarmament for a time, but the old order in Japan would remain in charge. Certainly there would be no occupation and no internal reform. - (Richard B. Frank 2009)"
With regard to the Kwantung Army in particular, here are your requested citations:
History of USMC Operations In WWII pt. 5, p. 530:
"Although the Kwantung Army reeled back from Soviet blows, most of its units were still intact and it was hardly ready to be counted out of the fight. The Japanese Emperor's Imperial Rescript which ordered his troops to lay down their arms was the only thing which prevented a protracted and costly battle."
"The ability of Kwantung Army elements to counter the Soviet invasion was perhaps at its lowest ebb since 1941. Almost every one of its first-class divisions had been transferred to other theaters of war--principally the Pacific. To replace them, hastily organized divisions, formed largely from recruits who had previously been deferred from military service, were deployed in areas formerly garrisoned by much larger and stronger forces and at fortifications which had been stripped of many of their weapons.
By early 1945 Kwantung Army had so little strength left that it was directed by Imperial General Headquarters to create "the semblance of strength" in order to deceive Soviet intelligence. One of the stratagems adopted in this connection was to refer to a division as an "army."
Aside from its weak strength and its "false front" Kwantung Army's desperation was revealed by its abandonment of a holding plan and the adoption of a delaying plan, by its shortages of weapons of all types (and the use of bamboo spears as substitutes for rifles), by the lack of tanks and antitank weapons, and by the fact that it had to resort to the use of suicide squads to stop Soviet tanks. In the months from early 1943 to August 1945, Manchuria which had been regarded as the granary, the arsenal, and the manpower reservoir of the Japanese Army, had been divested of much of these resources, and the Kwantung Army, once the most vigorous of Japanese forces, had had so much of its strength sapped that it had become a shadow of its former self and could no longer be considered an effective fighting force. The loss of effectiveness had not been accompanied, however, by an equal loss of morale, for although the Soviet Army accomplished its objective of defeating the Kwantung Army it did not do so in a true military sense, since the Kwantung Army--much of it still intact--did not surrender because of military necessity but at the command of the Japanese emperor."
Source for bread riots, please.
Please provide a source.
At the end of the war in August 1945 Japan had 95 Kaisenbun worth of ammunition on-hand (kaisenbun = 4 month "Division-battle") and equipment for 120 divisions [Appendix Table C-156, "The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan's War Economy"]. In Kyushu and the Kanto Plain (Tokyo) it was mainly a problem of distribution.
What battlefield density studies? Your link redirects to the Pacific War Encyclopedia's article on casualties in general. I already posted Willoughby's actual conclusions above. To add to this, he predicted in July that just to push up to the "stop line" a third of the way up the island could cost 210,000 to 280,000 battle casualties to American forces, before rounding this down to a conservative 200,000. This was without taking into account two additional enemy divisions and a division equivalent that appeared on his intelligence map prior to the Japanese surrender. [Giangreco p.47]
The figures quoted were monthly replacement rates.
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McPherson
Banned
The US one. Known as OP-20-G.
On page (enclosure 46.) the US source lists monthly naval aircraft numbers for 1945 and then the yearly total.
I added and compared. The numbers agreed I also noticed that the new air aircraft produced fell off to zero by September. Want to know what Army aircraft production was like? SAME again. So when I compared combat capable as in being able to be used for kamikaze type missions, I noticed that the same for IJA aircraft was in evidence. I also refer you to page 78 where the virtual collapse of Japanese air production is described as well as the GARBAGE DATA that the US has access to make their guesses. IOW, you make my case even stronger.
You should read your own citation.
My data is actually better than yours. And that is surprising seeing how you could not interpret your own sources. (More on that asshole, Willoughby, in a moment. I can't believe you actually cited that liar and bastard.)
1. Its the civilians who matter.2. The Japanese equipment is here. How effective against Mustard? Not very.
3. Read this.
Discredited already.
Discredited already.
The Japanese certainly would be.
That had better be backed up by cited sources because your assertions in post 123 and 127 are not in coincidence with postwar evidence.
That idiot? The one who could not predict the Chinese attack across the Yalu in 1951, the BS artist who misrepresented intelligence estimates during both WW II and the Korean War, who the USN (*rightly) regarded as a huge security risk and therefore would never share MAGIC with that damned fool? That out and out FASCIST liar? Charles Willoughby? Get yourself another source. He's like Mitscher, another born liar, whose words mean nothing.
You do the math.
It is not numbers, it is firepower and supply at this stage of the war. The US had it at the points of contact, the Japanese do not. About 4 to 1.
Your scholarship needs work.
Nope. As I said, you need to do better, like look at the JAPANESE.
Gave it to you. (^^^)
Same again.
Read Bruce Johnson's "Japanese Food Management during World War II." The Japanese were finished.
That is a 1 month division supply my friend for a division AGAINST THE AMERICANS. Read your own CHART. Specifically: 2.7 million rifle rounds, 2.8 million light machine gun rounds, 16,800 antitank rounds, 27,000 70-millimeter artillery rounds, 15,600 75-millimeter rounds (for regimental guns), and 48,000 75-millimeter rounds (for field and mountain guns) as specified in 1940 AGAINST THE CHINESE. And since there were 95 sets that were scattered on dumps everywhere in Japan and China, the question is how were the Japanese supposed to distribute the stocks to the points of contact to their 48 division equivalents?
Discredited. I already explained that your primary source is garbage. (^^^) As for battlefield densities, use Hyperwar as I did.
Yes, it is < 1/3 of 100 days which is why your point was moot and spurious. The Japanese could not last in direct combat more than 30 days. They run out of food, bullets and soldiers.
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