The transferred vessels included amphibious assault ships. "[61], By the time of surrender, the Japanese had over 735,000 military personnel either in position or in various stages of deployment on Kyushu alone. [100] With the defeat of Germany and Japan, their plans were put into action. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Japanese-held Manchuria on the night of August 8. In the Allied party were Generals Percival and Wainwright who had surrendered to the Japanese in 1942 at Singapore and in the Philippines respectively. The US Army Fifth and Seventh Air Forces and US Marine air units had moved into the islands immediately after the invasion, and air strength had been increasing in preparation for the all-out assault on Japan. The casualty rate on Okinawa was 35%;with 767,000 men scheduled to participate in taking Kyushu, it was estimated that there would be 268,000 casualties. Seeman advised that American troops not enter an area hit by a bomb for "at least 48 hours"; the risk of nuclear fallout was not well understood, and such a short time after detonation would have exposed American troops to substantial radiation. General Arthur MacArthur and the army planners urged an early assault on Kyushu followed by an invasion of the main island of Honshu. Remaining major warships numbered four battleships (all damaged), five damaged aircraft carriers, two cruisers, 23 destroyers, and 46 submarines. Soviet-Japanese War During the Soviet-Japanese War in August 1945, the Soviet Union made plans to invade Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan 's four main home islands. It consisted of more than 120,000 people working on 37 different sites across 19 states in the US and in Canada, at a cost of more than $2 billion. In the early years of World War II, the Soviets had planned on building a huge navy to catch up with the Western world. In the wee hours of Aug. 24, 1945, Soviet long-range bombers would take off from their air base not far from the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok and fly east, across the Sea of Japan, dropping. Planning was later scaled back to 22 squadrons and, by the time the war ended, to 10 squadrons: between 120 and 150 Avro Lancasters/Lincolns, operating out of airbases on Okinawa. What Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Portends for Japan's Northern Territories Tokyo appears to have finally realized that Putin has no intention of ever handing any of the disputed islands back. Operation Downfall, the codename for the invasion of Japan, was scheduled to begin on Nov 1, 1945. [47], The Japanese did not formally decide to stake everything on the outcome of the Battle of Kysh, but they concentrated their assets to such a degree that there would be little left in reserve. Kanto 1,280,000, US military intelligence initially estimated the number of Japanese aircraft to be around 2,500. But tempering Marshall's personal commitment to invasion would have been his comprehension that civilian sanction in general, and Truman's in particular, was unlikely for a costly invasion that no longer enjoyed consensus support from the armed services.[76]. If the US casualty rate during the invasion of Japan had been only 5% as high per unit area as it was at Okinawa, the US would still have lost 297,000 soldiers (killed or missing). Airbases on Kysh captured in Operation Olympic would allow land-based air support for Operation Coronet. These ranged from 0.42 dead and missing and 2.16 total casualties per 1000 men per day under the "European Experience" to 1.95 dead and missing and 7.45 total casualties per 1000 men per day under the "Pacific Experience. There were two unsuccessful Japanese counterattacks which ultimately weakened the capability of the defending forces to resist the American onslaught. [19] Coronet would have been even larger than Olympic, with up to 45 U.S. divisions assigned for both the initial landing and follow-up. On 8 August the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan at midnight. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945 the Allies agreed to the Soviet conditions which included restoration of her special rights in Manchuria after their defeat during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 brought an end to the Second World War, but at a terrible cost to the Japanese civilian population, and signalling the dawn of the nuclear age. Barton, Charles A. In total, 368 ships, including 120 amphibious craft, were badly damaged, and another 28, including 15 landing ships and 12 destroyers, were sunk, mostly by kamikazes. More than 170,000 US servicemen took part in the islands capture, it was the most costly operation in the Pacific war. The Fifth Air Fleet was assigned the task of kamikaze attacks against ships involved in the invasion of Okinawa, Operation Ten-Go, and began training pilots and assembling aircraft for the defense of Kysh, the first invasion target. Estimated troop strength in early July was 350,000,[59] rising to 545,000 in early August. [68], Fear of Japanese retaliation [to chemical weapon use] lessened because by the end of the war Japan's ability to deliver gas by air or long-range guns had all but disappeared. The Soviet invasion of the Kuril Islands (18 August 1 September 1945) took place after Japan's capitulation on 15 August. [citation needed], Fears of "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other"[64] encouraged the Allies to consider unconventional weapons, including chemical warfare. It had already been decided that Germany would . In China, Operation Ichigo started in April 1944. The well-established Japanese garrison had 8,500 troops and fielded about 77 tanks. Weapons, training and uniforms were generally lacking: many were armed with nothing better than antiquated firearms, molotov cocktails, longbows, swords, knives, bamboo or wooden spears, and even clubs and truncheons: they were expected to make do with what they had. [citation needed], In March 1945, there was only one combat division in Kysh. Southern Kysh would offer a staging ground and a valuable airbase for Operation Coronet. Russia was preparing to attack Japan in the summer of 2021, months before President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an email featuring a letter from a whistleblower at. At Kysh, because of the more favorable circumstances (such as terrain that would reduce the Allies' radar advantage, and the impressment of wood and fabric airframe training aircraft into the kamikaze role which would have been difficult for Allied radar systems of the time to detect and track), they hoped to raise that to one for six by overwhelming the US defenses with large numbers of kamikaze attacks within a period of hours. Truman's Options . Manchurian Strategic Offensive. [63] The buildup of Japanese troops on Kysh led American war planners, most importantly General George Marshall, to consider drastic changes to Olympic, or replacing it with a different invasion plan. 6, part 1, History of Planning Division, ASF vol. Even when rounded down to a conservative 200,000, this figure implied a total of nearly 500,000 all-causes losses, of whom perhaps 50,000 might return to duty after light to moderate care. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria and other Japanese colonies began at midnight on August 8, sandwiched between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kyushu 990,000 Operation Olympic would attack southern Kysh. Commemorate75 years since the end of the Second World War in Europe and remember the personal stories of people who stood together during a time of national crisis. Background Giangreco 7/19/2017 Daunting terrain and fanatical resistance threatened to take a horrific toll on GI invaders. Then in February 1945, US Marines assaulted the tiny island of Iwo Jima, midway between the Marianas and Japan. [73], The Joint Staff planners, taking note of the extent to which the Japanese had concentrated on Kysh at the expense of the rest of Japan, considered alternate places to invade such as the island of Shikoku, northern Honshu at Sendai, or Ominato. Soviet soldiers in front of Harbin railway station. In February, with the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine days away, officials in Kyiv were busy making plans to attack Moscow. They and their soldiers had endured three years of harsh captivity. The combined Allied naval armada would have been the largest ever assembled, including 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts. By August, they had 14 divisions and various smaller formations, including three tank brigades, for a total of 900,000 men. [citation needed], The main defense against Japanese air attacks would have come from the massive fighter forces being assembled in the Ryukyu Islands. On 10 August Japan offered to surrender unconditionally under the terms of the Potsdam Declaration as long as the emperor remained sovereign ruler. Soviet forces invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (Manchuria) under the command of Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky with 1.6 million soldiers. In early 1945, Miyazaki was virtually undefended, while Ariake, with its good nearby harbor, was heavily defended. ", Henry L. Stimson, "The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb" p. 11, "Okinawa: The Final Great Battle of World War II", "The Final Months of the War with Japan. Richard B. Frank states that when the proposal reached Truman in June 1945, he vetoed the use of chemical weapons against personnel; their use against crops, however, remained under consideration. The Americans considered Okinawa a dress rehearsal for the invasion of the Japanese home islands, for which the United States was finalizing a two-stage plan. [36] The Japanese were secretly constructing an underground headquarters in Matsushiro, Nagano Prefecture, to shelter the Emperor and the Imperial General Staff during an invasion. Also, by the end of that year, the United States entered the war after Japan (an ally of Germany) attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At Potsdam the Soviets informed their Allied counterparts that they would be ready to move against Japan in mid-August. In May, Admiral Nimitz's staff estimated 49,000 U.S casualties in the first 30 days of Operation Olympic, including 5,000 at sea. The counteroffensive forces were still farther back, prepared to move against the largest landing. ", "The Final Months of the War With Japan: Signals Intelligence, U.S. Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the . However, as reported Japanese strength in the Home Islands continued to climb and Japanese military performance increased, so too did the casualty estimates. [citation needed], The Japanese had kamikaze aircraft in southern Honshu and Kyushu which would have opposed operations Olympic and Coronet. In preparation for the invasion, an air campaign against Japanese airfields and transportation arteries had commenced before the Japanese surrender. The Army began experimenting with compounds to destroy crops in April 1944, and within one year had narrowed over 1,000 agents to nine promising ones containing phenoxyacetic acids. The same day, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. [58], Allied counter-kamikaze preparations were known as the Big Blue Blanket. Initially, they were concerned about an invasion during the summer of 1945. Yet the conflict did not end on this day, particularly in Asia. While some totals (particularly for items such as swords and small arms) may be inexact because of the problems of collection and the activities of the black market, the amount of military equipment available to the Japanese in and around the Home Islands by August 1945 was roughly as follows: "Invasion of Japan" redirects here. Opposition from the United States and doubts within the Soviet high command caused the plans to be cancelled before the invasion could begin. The main attack was carried out by the Fourteenth Army, comprising 340,000 Indian troops, 100,000 British and 80,000 African soldiers, which defeated the Japanese defending forces in central Burma. Had reinforcements been needed at an early stage of Olympic, they would have been diverted from US forces being assembled for Coronetfor which there was to be a massive redeployment of units from the US Army's Southwest Pacific, China-Burma-India and European commands, among others. Invasion Planning, and the A-Bomb Decision", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Downfall&oldid=1152535827, "That operations in this area will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population. As with the fact that it was the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany at Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk that crushed Nazi Germany, not D-Day which came when Hitler's defeat was already inevitable, the truth about World War II against Japan is also gradually being admitted - even if it took 70 years to do it. Colonel Lyle E. Seeman reported that at least seven Fat Man-type plutonium implosion bombs would be available by X-Day, which could be dropped on defending forces. This raid burned 15.8 square miles of Tokyo, killing almost 100,000 Japanese. As for the second bomb on Nagasaki, that was just as unnecessary as the . By August, the Japanese Army had the equivalent of 65 divisions in the homeland but only enough equipment for 40 and ammunition for 30. Some 1,200 suicide divers had been trained before the Japanese surrender. [57] The United States Strategic Bombing Survey subsequently estimated that if the Japanese managed 5,000 kamikaze sorties, they could have sunk around 90 ships and damaged another 900, roughly triple the Navy's losses at Okinawa. [49][50] One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. [69], In addition to use against people, the U.S. military considered chemical attacks to kill crops in an attempt to starve the Japanese into submission. Background The Soviet plan of attack called for an invasion of Hokkaido from the west. An email sent by a whistleblower at FSB . 6 part 1. [citation needed], For the defense of Kysh, the Japanese took an intermediate posture, with the bulk of their defensive forces a few kilometers inland, back far enough to avoid complete exposure to naval bombardment, but close enough that the Americans could not establish a secure foothold before engaging them. Once the atomic bomb became available, General Marshall envisioned using it to support the invasion if sufficient numbers could be produced in time. United States Naval Institute. [26] The British Government suggested that: Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Keightley should command the Commonwealth Corps, a combined Commonwealth fleet should be led by Vice-Admiral Sir William Tennant, and thatas Commonwealth air units would be dominated by the RAAF the Air Officer Commanding should be Australian. Herbert Hoover, in memorandums submitted to Truman and Stimson, also estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 fatalities, which were believed to be conservative estimates; however, it is not known if Hoover discussed these specific figures in his meetings with Truman. [28] However, the Australian government questioned the appointment of an officer with no experience in fighting the Japanese, such as Keightley and suggested that Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead, an Australian who had been carrying out the New Guinea and Borneo campaigns, should be appointed. The invasion was not intended to conquer the entire island, just the southernmost third of it, as indicated by the dashed line on the map labeled "general limit of northern advance". [86][pageneeded] In April 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff formally adopted a planning paper giving a range of possible casualties based on experience in both Europe and the Pacific. [29][pageneeded] The war ended before the details of the corps were finalized. [5], The Pacific War was not under a single Allied commander-in-chief (C-in-C). 2,500 Army aircraft (conventional as well as suicide), together with 2,900 Naval trainers for, 2,000 Army and Navy "air superiority" fighters to escort the. They also considered skipping the preliminary invasion and going directly at Tokyo. Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of the Japanese home islands near the end of World War II. 1940s 1945 - US USES ATOMIC BOMBS ON JAPAN TO END WWII In an attempt to end the war in the Pacific without a costly invasion of Japan, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945 respectively. Kyushu 900,000 Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of the Japanese home islands near the end of World War II. With the apparent rejection of the Potsdam Declaration, Truman and his advisers went ahead with the atomic attack on the Japanese mainland. U.S. plans for the invasion of Kyushu in Operation Olympic, the first phase of the planned invasion of Japan. Contributor: C. Peter Chen. On 6 August the lead bomber of three B-29s, Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibits, commander of 509th Composite Group, dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The first phase, code-named Olympic , was scheduled for late October 1945, with a landing on Kyushu, defended by an estimated 350,000 Japanese troops backed by at least 1,000 kamikaze planes. The task of strategic bombing fell on the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific (USASTAF)a formation which comprised the Eighth and Twentieth air forces, as well as the British Tiger Force. A study done by General MacArthur's staff in June estimated 23,000 US casualties in the first 30 days of Olympic and 125,000 after 120 days, fighting an assumed Japanese force of 300,000[91] (in actuality some 917,000 Japanese troops were on Kyushu,[92]). In the days following the bombings Japan surrendered. 140 reconnaissance planes to detect the approach of the Allied fleet. This would have been the Pacific equivalent of D-Day. Part 8, pp. A World War II history many have seemed to have forgotten - Russia was getting ready to invade Japan: On April 10, 1945 a Soviet freighter slipped up to a quay at a frozen military base on a remote tip of Alaska aptly named Cold Bay. War against Japan, 1945 In South East Asia, by late 1944, British and Commonwealth, US and Chinese forces had begun the reconquest of Burma (Myanmar). [16] The Eighth was to upgrade their B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators to B-29 Superfortresses (the group received its first B-29 on 8 August 1945).[16]. Gradually, intelligence learned that the Japanese were devoting all their aircraft to the kamikaze mission and taking effective measures to conserve them until the battle. their plan for an all-out ground invasion of Japan. [44][45], The two defensive options against amphibious invasion are strong defense of the beaches and defense in depth. In South East Asia, by late 1944, British and Commonwealth, US and Chinese forces had begun the reconquest of Burma (Myanmar). The Japanese staged a furious defence, which included kamikaze suicide attacks (c. 1900 sorties) against the invasion fleet. [74] Attacking northern Honshu would have the advantage of a much weaker defense but had the disadvantage of giving up land-based air support (except the B-29s) from Okinawa. In early 1946 would come Operation Coronet, the planned invasion of the Kant Plain, near Tokyo, on the main Japanese island of Honshu. A number of surrender ceremonies took place across South East and East Asia culminating on 2 September when the formal instrument of surrender was signed by Allied and Japanese representatives on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock. On June 22, 1941, more than 3 million German and Axis troops invaded the Soviet Union along an 1,800-mile-long front, launching Operation Barbarossa. On July 26, the leaders of the US, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding unconditional Japanese surrender and vowing "prompt and utter destruction" if Japan refused. [93] ", "That the enemy may withdraw his land-based air forces to the Asiatic Mainland for protection from our neutralizing attacks. For Operation Downfall, the US military envisaged requiring more than 30 divisions for a successful invasion of the Japanese home islands. Surprise resort trips and empty hotel rooms reveal how Russia's plan for an easy victory in Ukraine fell apart. That fleet's secret mission: to transport the Red Army for an invasion of Japan . If a clock were drawn on a map of Kysh, these points would roughly correspond to 4, 5, and 7 o'clock, respectively. The fighter-bombers from 40 aircraft carriers made 3000 trips to bomb the island and the big guns of ten battleships and nine cruisers fired 13,000 shells. This area would then be used as a further staging point to attack Honshu in Operation Coronet. A devastating typhoon in October 1945 would have delayed Allied invasion preparations, while bad weather in the winter and spring of 1946 would have hampered operations and logistics. History of Planning Division, ASF vol. Apr 30, 2023, 2:37 PM PDT. Allied command was divided into regions: by 1945, for example, Chester Nimitz was the Allied C-in-C Pacific Ocean Areas, while Douglas MacArthur was Supreme Allied Commander, South West Pacific Area, and Admiral Louis Mountbatten was the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command. Answer (1 of 4): When Stalin agreed to join the war against Japan, he presented the US with a considerable wish list of Lend-Lease materials. The ingredients in LN-8 and another tested compound would later be used to create Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam War. [85] This likewise excludes wounded who would be treated in-theater during an initial window of 30 days, later to be expanded to 120 days. [citation needed]. The Chief of the Army Operations Division thought them "entirely too high" under "our present plan of campaign. [3] So fearful were the Japanese leaders that they planned to ignore isolated tactical use of gas in the home islands by the US forces because they feared escalation. With the British Pacific Fleet, August 1945. Yalta Conference, (February 4-11, 1945), major World War II conference of the three chief Allied leadersPres. The plans for war with Japan may have been related to a longstanding territorial dispute concerning the strategically. The Soviets, however, had fewer than 400 ships, most of them not equipped for amphibious assault, when they declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945.[81]. Interservice rivalry over who it should be (the United States Navy wanted Nimitz, but the United States Army wanted MacArthur) was so serious that it threatened to derail planning. One staff study estimated that the kamikazes could destroy a third to half of the invasion force before landing. The Soviets planned an invasion of Hokkaido in August 1945 At the Yalta Conference, Franklin Roosevelt secured a promise from Stalin to invade Japan, which was reiterated to Truman during the Potsdam Conference. The battle resulted in 72,000 US casualties in 82 days, of whom 12,510 were killed or missing (this figure excludes the several thousand US soldiers who died after the battle indirectly, from their wounds). The Japanese would have lost at least 12 million men killed, due to the enormous losses fighting, from the nuclear bomb, and the mass of Kamikaze attacks. But the war in the east still raged on and Japanese surrender seemed a long way off. The Japanese High Command instigated a massive defence plan, Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive) beginning with Kyushu that would eventually amount to almost 3 million men with the aim of breaking American morale by ferocious defence. The Proposed Invasion of Japan On 8 May 1945, the Allies celebrated VE Day, marking the end of the war in Europe. [86][pageneeded], In evaluating these estimates, especially those based on projected Japanese troop strength (such as General MacArthur's), it is important to consider what was known about the state of Japanese defenses at the time, as well as the actual condition of those defenses (MacArthur's staff believed Japanese manpower on Kyushu to be roughly 300,000).
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