Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Historical facts contradict that view. The military had drawn up the plans and was transferring troops from Europe.

They didn't knw about an A-bomb and no one who did was sure that it would work. The firebombing of Japanese cities had not resulted in a surrender either.

Planning the Invasion of Japan

By DENIS WARNERJUNE 15, 1995

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/15/opinion/IHT-planning-the-invasion-of-japan.html

In mid-June 1945, while the battle for Okinawa was grinding to an end, leaving more than a quarter of a million deadon both sides, the planners in Washington and Tokyo were preparing for the next round: the invasion of Japan itself.

Operation Olympic — the planned invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands — had been tentatively set for Nov. 1. But as late as May 25, Admiral

Chester Nimitz, the U.S. naval commander in the Pacific, had second thoughts. In a message to Admiral Ernest King, the chief of naval staff in Washington, he warned that when the Japanese occupied well-prepared defenses and had adequate supplies, they were a force against which the best American troops — even with air, artillery and naval gunfire support — could advance only slowly.

It would be unrealistic, Admiral Nimitz said, to expect that such obvious objectives as southern Kyushu and the Tokyo plain would not be as well defended as Okinawa.

Admiral Nimitz believed that it would be better not to try to invade in 1945 but instead to continue the isolation of Japan and destroy Japanese forces by air and naval attack. However, General Douglas MacArthur dismissed isolation and bombardment as likely to prolong the war indefinitely.

Presented with these conflicting opinions, President Harry Truman had doubts. On June 14, he summoned the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the White House. They were advised to come four days later, armed with information on the number of American soldiers and ships needed to defeat Japan, an estimate of the time required, and of the casualties that would result from an invasion.

The U.S. joint war plans committee thought that 14 divisions — 11 army and 3 marines — would be needed to overrun southern Kyushu. Casualties might run to 132,000, with 25,000 killed.

At the White House meeting, General George Marshall, the chief of army staff, read the digest of the memorandum approving Operation Olympic.

When it came to casualties, he said,"it is a grim fact that there is no easy, bloodless way to victory in war, and it is the thankless task of the leaders to maintain their firm outward front ... Any irresolution in the leaders may result in costly weakening and indecision in the subordinates."

Only Henry Stimson, the secretary of war, who had been involved from the beginning with plans to produce the atomic bomb and bacteriological weapons, expressed some qualified doubt when he said he hoped "for some fruitful accomplishment through other means."

As more and better intelligence flowed in, however, it became apparent that even the highest U.S. casualty estimates were likely to prove much too low.

Some reports suggested that the figures tossed around at the White House on June 18 might be surpassed in a single day.

In the final year of the war, Japanese intelligence correctly anticipated American offensive plans. It predicted the invasions of Saipan, Guam and Tinian and assumed correctly that Iwo Jima would be next and that Okinawa and then southern Kyushu would follow.

Japanese military also believed invasion would happen.

Japanese intelligence even named the beaches where the U.S. forces would come ashore. Southern Kyushu was given the highest priority by military planners. New divisions were brought in from Manchuria, Hokkaido and Honshu. Instead of 3 army divisions, the Americans would have to face 14, about 12,000 kamikaze planes and a fleet of naval suicide craft.

The Joint Chiefs asked Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur for their assessments of the new intelligence. The war archives indicate that Admiral Nimitz had not replied before the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war to an end. General MacArthur, often contemptuous of intelligence, repliedthat the Japanese air potential was greatly exaggerated:

"We have recently seen the 3d Fleet approach the southern and central coastline of Japan close enough for gunfire bombardment, and yet no reaction from the air has taken place. Our air forces are daily flying throughout Japan and provoke no reaction ... In my opinion, there should not be the slightest thought of changing the Olympic operation."

What he did not know was that the disappearance of the kamikaze planes, as the U.S. 3d Fleet ranged down the coast of Japan and American B-29s firebombed the cities, was a matter of policy. The kamikazes were being saved for the critical battle of southern Kyushu.

The U.S. 6th Army planned to use eight divisions in the initial assault, one to secure the offshore islands and seven in the attack on Kyushu. American forces would have been opposed by six static Japanese divisions, two independent mixed brigades, the equivalent of two tank brigades, and miscellaneous fortress and naval troops deployed in the vicinity of the landing beaches. In addition, three mobile Japanese reserve divisions were positioned to intervene in the fighting for the initial beachheads.

In the Okinawa campaign, the United States had the conventional 3-to-1 superiority in numbers. In the invasion of Kyushu, American troops would have been outnumbered 8 to 5.

No doubt the Americans would have prevailed. But they would have had to call in extra divisions earmarked for the invasion of the Tokyo plain. The cost in lives would have been enormous. And the United States would most probably have resorted to use of poison gas tohasten an end to resistance.

The Allies had avoided using gas during the war, but it was seriously considered during planning for Operation Olympic. Brigadier General William Bordern, director of the New Development Division of the U.S. War Department, discussed use of gas in the numerous caves that American forces expected to encounter in the invasion of Kyushu.

He said it would be effective when fired directly into the mouths of the caves. If gas was to be used, the U.S. Navy had planned that it would make up about 20 percent of the air bombardment.

The Pacific war had its tally of horrors. The atomic bomb was one of them. But its use almost certainly avoided another.

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The writer, who covered the war in the Pacific for Australian and British newspapers, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.