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[78][79][80] As a result, in Project Hula (1945), the United States transferred about 100 naval vessels out of the 180 planned to the Soviet Union in preparation for the planned Soviet entry into the war against Japan. This page was last edited on 30 April 2023, at 20:51. ", "The Final Months of the War With Japan: Signals Intelligence, U.S. Opposition from the United States and doubts within the Soviet high command caused the plans to be canceled before the invasion could begin. [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]. By August, they had 14 divisions and various smaller formations, including three tank brigades, for a total of 900,000 men. The Cold War Notes. In early 1945, Miyazaki was virtually undefended, while Ariake, with its good nearby harbor, was heavily defended. Background The estimated casualty figures later became a crucial point in postwar debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The remaining Imperial Japanese Navy was wiped out at Leyte Gulf off the Philippines, which was liberated in early 1945. At the Yalta Conference (February 1945), the Allies had agreed that the Soviet Union would take the southern part of the island of Sakhalin, which Japan had invaded during the 19041905 Russo-Japanese War, and which Russia had ceded in the Treaty of Portsmouth after the war (the Soviets already controlled the northern part), and the Kuril Islands, which had been assigned to Japan in the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg. Depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians would have resisted the invasion, estimates ran up into the millions for Allied casualties. "[101], The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, with an estimated total of over 82,000 direct casualties on both sides: 14,009 Allied deaths and 77,417 Japanese soldiers. Kamikaze: Japanese Special Attack Weapons 194445. As at Hiroshima, thousands more were to die from their injuries or the after-effects of radiation. On 15 January 1945, the U.S. Army Service Forces released a document, "Redeployment of the United States Army after the Defeat of Germany." Estimated troop strength in early July was 350,000,[59] rising to 545,000 in early August. As set out in prior parts of the series, communications intelligence revealed the massive Japanese build up on southern Kyushu, the planned target for an initial invasion of Japan in November 1945 (Operation OLYMPIC.) [62] The total strength of the Japanese military in the Home Islands amounted to 4,335,500, of whom 2,372,700 were in the Army and 1,962,800 in the Navy. [17] The invasion of Okinawa had demonstrated the value of establishing secure anchorages close at hand, for ships not needed off the landing beaches and for ships damaged by air attack. Meanwhile, the Japanese had their own plans. Share. These were the Army plans to conquer Japan - We Are The Mighty The atomic bomb & The Manhattan Project (article) | Khan Academy During World War II, the Japanese had a naval base at Paramushiro in the Kuril Islands and several bases in Hokkaido. 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. [93] The Horribles: American Strategic Options Against Japan in 1945 The G-7 consists of the United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada. 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. The decision to use the atomic bomb | Britannica By the time the war ended, the Army was still trying to determine the optimal dispersal height to cover a wide enough area. "It is an awful responsibility that has come to us," the president wrote. Contributor: C. Peter Chen. This also includes Soviet losses from the planned Soviet invasion of Hokkaido. [90] [24] This was rejected by U.S. commanders and even the initial plans for Coronet, according to U.S. historian John Ray Skates, did not envisage that units from Commonwealth or other Allied armies would be landed on the Kant Plain in 1946. That changed in July, with the discovery of four new divisions and indications of more to come. [102] The entire island of Okinawa is 464sqmi (1,200km2). IWM collections. 109 (8): 4647, History of Planning division, ASF. The Twentieth Air Force was to have continued its role as the main Allied strategic bomber force used against the Japanese home islands, operating from airfields in the Mariana Islands. The planned operation was canceled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet declaration of war, and the invasion of Manchuria. [70], On Marshall's orders, Major General John E. Hull looked into the tactical use of nuclear weapons for the invasion of the Japanese home islands, even after the dropping of two strategic atomic bombs on Japan (Marshall did not think that the Japanese would capitulate immediately). On 14 August Japan surrendered. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China, and war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace. A unified command was deemed necessary for an invasion of Japan. Japanese military directives ordered the execution of all POWs being held if Japan was ever invaded. However, as reported Japanese strength in the Home Islands continued to climb and Japanese military performance increased, so too did the casualty estimates. [95] Admiral King thought that casualties in the first 30 days would fall between Luzon and Okinawa, i.e., between 31,000 and 41,000. Learn About D-Day, The Memorial, and Bedford - National D-Day Memorial [11] The Army, on the other hand, argued that such a strategy could "prolong the war indefinitely" and expend lives needlessly, and therefore that an invasion was necessary. 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. Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Despite the shattering damage it had absorbed by this stage of the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy, by then organized under the Navy General Command, was determined to inflict as much damage on the Allies as possible. Operation Olympic would attack southern Kysh. 100 transport planes carrying 1,200 commandos for a raid on the US airbases on Okinawa, following the success of earlier smaller-scale operations. An inventory of mines was anchored to the sea bottom off each potential invasion beach for their use by the suicide divers, with up to 10,000 mines planned. The capitulation followed three days of heated debate amongst Japanese leaders. Plan Your Visit Current Exhibitions Calendar of Events . As to the movement of ground forces I do not credit the heavy strengths reported to you in southern Kyushu. [44][45], The two defensive options against amphibious invasion are strong defense of the beaches and defense in depth. It is unknown to what extent they could have opposed Soviet landings in the far north of Japan. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan. If not checked, this threatened "to grow to [the] point where we attack on a ratio of one (1) to one (1) which is not the recipe for victory. 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]. Kanto (Tokyo) 950,000 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. That under such circumstances he can possibly amass from 2,000 to 2,500 planes in that area by exercising a rigid economy, and that this force can operate against Kyushu landings by staging through homeland fields.". By August, the count was up to 600,000, and Magic cryptanalysis had identified nine divisions in southern Kyshthree times the expected number and still a serious underestimate of the actual Japanese strength. 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. 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. Fourteen U.S. divisions and a "division-equivalent" (two regimental combat teams)[14] were scheduled to take part in the initial landings. The combined Allied naval armada would have been the largest ever assembled, including 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts. 'Hell To Pay' Sheds New Light On A-Bomb Decision : NPR Admiral Matome Ugaki was recalled to Japan in February 1945 and given command of the Fifth Air Fleet on Kysh. The race to produce the first atomic weapon before Germanywas headed by the Manhattan project. Dropping or spraying the herbicide was deemed most effective; a July 1945 test from an SPD Mark 2 bomb, originally crafted to hold biological weapons like anthrax or ricin, had the shell burst open in the air to scatter the chemical agent. Nimitz planned a pre-invasion feint, sending a fleet to the invasion beaches a couple of weeks before the real invasion, to lure out the Japanese on their one-way flights, who would then find ships bristling with anti-aircraft guns instead of the valuable, vulnerable transports. To attack the ships off Okinawa, Japanese planes had to fly long distances over open water; to attack the ships off Kysh, they could fly overland and then short distances out to the landing fleets. [7][8] The American Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that prolonging the war to such an extent was dangerous for national morale. Indeed, the first day of the invasion would have been . President Truman authorized the use of the atom bombs in an effort to bring about Japan's surrender in the Second World War. The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan - The Soviet Union Did. Important analysis [49][50] One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. [54] By the time the war ended, the Japanese actually possessed some 12,700 aircraft in the Home Islands, roughly half kamikazes. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Japanese-held Manchuria on the night of August 8. Initially, US planners also did not plan to use any non-US Allied ground forces in Operation Downfall. Britain and Decolonisation in South East and South Asia, 1945-1948. The Japanese command intended to organize its Army personnel according to the following plan:[52], Total mobilized: 3,150,000 In 1944, early planning proposed a force of 5001,000 aircraft, including units dedicated to aerial refueling. Kysh was to be invaded by the Sixth United States Army at three points: Miyazaki, Ariake, and Kushikino. Following the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, plans were also made to transfer some of the heavy bomber groups of the veteran Eighth Air Force to airbases on Okinawa to conduct strategic bombing raids in coordination with the Twentieth. [53] The Okinawa experience was bad for the USalmost two fatalities and a similar number wounded per sortieand Kysh was likely to be worse. Top Image: Remains of a Shinto Shrine, Nagasaki, Japan, October 1945. Manchurian Strategic Offensive | World War II Database - WW2DB It referred instead to the Japanese foreign office's attempt (under the suspicious eyes of the military) to persuade the Soviet Union to broker a negotiated peace that would have permitted the. Widespread chemical warfare was considered against Japan's population[65] and food crops. ", "Are New Purple Hearts Being Manufactured to Meet the Demand? [55] Ketsu plans for Kyushu envisioned committing nearly 9,000 aircraft according to the following sequence:[56], The Japanese planned to commit the majority of their air forces to action within 10 days after the Allied fleet's arrival off Kysh. It's Time to Confront Painful Truths About Using the Atomic Bombs on Japan . At Potsdam the Soviets informed their Allied counterparts that they would be ready to move against Japan in mid-August. The ingredients in LN-8 and another tested compound would later be used to create Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam War. The transferred vessels included amphibious assault ships. When these figures were questioned by General Marshall, MacArthur submitted a revised estimate of 105,000, in part by deducting wounded men able to return to duty. Through April, May, and June, Allied intelligence followed the buildup of Japanese ground forces, including five divisions added to Kysh, with great interest, but also some complacency, still projecting that in November the total for Kysh would be about 350,000 servicemen. Leaked documents reveal Russia's plan to invade Japan "[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. Russia planned to attack Japan in 2021 according to leaked FSB letters [1] The operation had two parts: Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. The Soviets informed the Japanese in April that their neutrality pact was at an end. It should be noted that this invasion occurred 2 days after the United States atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Initially the US undertook daylight precision bombing raids, but on the nights of 9-10 March,a change of strategy began with low level mass incendiary attacks on Japanese cities. About 400,000 Japanese died as a result of these raids plus the dropping of the atomic bombs. Stavros Atlamazoglou. If Downfall had taken place, it would have been the largest amphibious operation in history, surpassing D-Day. U.S. plans for the invasion of Kyushu in Operation Olympic, the first phase of the planned invasion of Japan. [38], Admiral Ernest King, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S Navy, was so concerned about losses from kamikaze attacks that he and other senior naval officers argued for canceling Operation Downfall, and instead continuing the fire-bombing campaign against Japanese cities and the blockade of food and supplies until the Japanese surrendered. 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. By mid-1945when plans for Coronet were being reworkedmany other Allied countries had, according to Skates, "offered ground forces, and a debate developed" amongst Western Allied political and military leaders, "over the size, mission, equipment, and support of these contingents". Initially, they were concerned about an invasion during the summer of 1945. The invasion of the second largest Japanese island of Hokkaido was originally planned by the Soviets to be part of the territory taken, when finally in August 7 the Soviets declared war on Japan. [97] Japanese holdouts, especially on . Soviets declare war on Japan; invade Manchuria - History The Americans lost 36 ships. [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. 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. America Had Plans to Help Russia Invade Japan During World War II Russia in 2021 was preparing to attack Japan just months before Russia's President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, new leaked letters from the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), the successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB accessed by Newsweek revealed. 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. It was followed by a second bomb on 9 August on Nagasaki. 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).
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