VICTORY AND OCCUPATION: History of U.S. Marine Corps
Operations in World War II: VOLUME V
HISTORICAL BRANCH, G-3 DIVISION, HEADQUARTERS, U.S. MARINE CORPS 1968
IGHQ means Imperial General Headquarters.
“Between September 1943 and February 1944, Rear Admiral Sokichi Takagi, chief of the Naval Ministry's research section, prepared a study of Japanese lessons learned in the fighting to that date. He maintained that it was possible to continue the war and that it was manifestly impossible for Japan to win. He thus corroborated an estimate made by top Japanese naval officers before 1941. At that time, they concluded that unless the war was won before the end of 1943, Japan was doomed, for it did not have the resources to continue the war after that time. Takagi's study and his conclusions were based on an analysis of fleet, air,
and merchant shipping losses as of the last of 1943. He pointed out the serious difficulty Japan was facing in importing essential materials, high-level confusion regarding war aims and the direction of the war and the growing feeling among some political and military leaders that General Hideki Tojo, Prime Minister since 1941, should be removed from office. Takagi stated also that both the possibility of American bombing raids on
Japan and the inability of the Japanese to obtain essential raw and finished products dictated that the nation should seek a compromise peace immediately. In March he presented his findings orally to two influential naval officers, Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, a former prime minister, and Vice Admiral Seibi Inouye, who employed the facts of the study to induce other members of the opposition to take firm steps to help change the course that Japan was travelling. Less than two months after the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, Japanese leaders began receiving reports of the massive numbers of men and amount of materiel that the Allies were able to land unopposed each day on the French coast. As a Japanese foreign ministry official later wrote: That was more than enough to dishearten us, the defenses of our home islands were far more vulnerable than the European invasion coast. Our amazement was boundless when we saw the American forces land on Saipan only ten days after D day in Europe. The Allies could execute simultaneous full-scale offensives in both European and Asiatic theaters.'”
Saipan
“Only 1,350 miles from Tokyo, Saipan constituted one of the most vital points in the Japanese outer defense system. Toshikasu Kase, the foreign ministry official quoted above, wrote that the
island: . , . was so strongly defended that it was considered impregnable. More than once I was told by the officers of the General Staff that Saipan was absolutely invincible. Our Supreme Command, however, made a strategic miscalculation. Anticipating an early attack on Palau Island, they transferred there the main fleet and the land-based air forces in order to deal a smashing blow to the hostile navy. The result was that Saipan, lacking both naval and air protection, proved surprisingly vulnerable.”
Battle of the Philippine Sea
“An even greater disaster befell the Japanese in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, 19-20 June 1944. This two-day conflict began when carrier-based aircraft of the Japanese First Mobile Fleet attacked Admiral Spruance's Fifth Fleet while it covered the Saipan operation. On the first day, two U. S. battleships, two carriers, and a heavy cruiser were damaged; the Japanese lost over 300 aircraft and two carriers. Pilots from Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's fast carrier task force struck back violently
the next day, sinking another enemy carrier and downing many Japanese planes. According to American estimates, their opponents suffered staggering losses in the two days: 426 carrier planes and 31 float planes. In addition, the Americans claimed that approximately 50 Guam-based aircraft
had been destroyed. Japanese sources confirm the loss of carriers and state that four others of
the nine committed in the fight were damaged. Enemy records show that of the 360 carrier-based aircraft sent to attack the American fleet, only 25 survived. "Although no battleships or cruisers were sunk, . . . the 10SS of aircraft carriers proved an almost fatal blow to the Japanese navy. with the
loss of the decisive aerial and naval battles, the Marianas were lost." Despite this thorough defeat, most Japanese were told that it was a glorious victory for them; "it was customary for GH [lGHQ] to make false announcements of victory in utter disregard of facts, and for the elated and complacent public
to believe in them.".
Never Surrender
“Nonetheless, confident of their ability to guide Japan to what they considered would be a just victory, the military leaders made adjustment after adjustment in strategy and troop dispositions
in one area after another as the Allied threat to the Home Islands intensified and accelerated. On the other hand, it is possible to understand their reluctance to view the situation realistically. From their earliest days, Japanese citizens were taught to believe that the one alternative to victory was death and
that surrender was so disgraceful as to be unthinkable. And the high command planned, therefore, to continue the war, even on Japanese soil if necessary, but to fight to the finish in any case. Even lower ranking Japanese Army and Navy officers, many of them products of a prewar conscript system, who
very often came from peasant families, held the same beliefs as their seniors regarding honor and obedience and the disgrace of surrendering. The code of the samurai had been all-pervasive for
many years and had influenced the attitude and outlook of nearly every facet of Japanese society.”
“Despite the many imposing obstacles looming ahead, IGHQ prepared to execute a protracted war in the Japanese islands. The command headquarters made itself the supreme authority for the operation of the war and took steps to see that the governmental structure would be revised so that the Prime Minister would have comparable authority over political matters. In addition, the entire nation was to be mobilized and all citizens capable of bearing weapons were to be armed. Key industries as well as the communications and
transportation facilities were to be reorganized and operated by the state along rigidly controlled lines.”
US sub effects on the Japanese economy
In late 1944 and early 1945, American bombings, fast carrier task force raids, and especially the submarine blockade had increased in intensity and reduced the Japanese north-south maritime shipments to a mere trickle, so that the economic structure of that country was slowly forced to a halt. Undoubtedly, the single most effective agent in this action was the blockade imposed by the ships of the U. S. Pacific submarine fleet. American submarines torpedoed or destroyed by gunfire 60 percent of the 2,117 Japanese merchant vessels, totalling 7,913,858 tons, sunk by American forces during the war. In addition, U. S. underseas forces accounted for 201 of the 686 enemy warships sunk in World
War 11,”
“At the beginning of March 1945, IGHQ stopped sending convoys to the south; northbound convoys carrying essential war material continued the attempt to reach Japanese ports, however. Some 70 to 80 percent of the ships never made it. Later in the month, Tokyo ordered shipping halted altogether. The noose around Japan was drawing tighter and tighter.”
Okinawa
“From the Allied point of view, the conquest of Okinawa would be most lucrative. As the largest island in the Ryukyus, it offered excellent locations for military and naval facilities. There was sufficient land area on the island on which to train and stage assault troops for subsequent operations against the heart of the Empire. Kyushu was only 350 nautical miles away, Formosa 330 miles distant, and Shanghai, 450. Two other major purposes of the impending invasion were to secure and develop airbase sites from which Allied aircraft
could operate to gain air superiority over Japan. It was expected that by taking Okinawa, while at the same time
subjecting the Home Islands to blockade and bombardment, Japanese military forces and their will to resist would be severely weakened.”
Suicide Boats
“Another source of troops to fill infantry ranks was found in the sea-raiding units. These organizations, first
encountered by American forces in the Philippines,, were designed for the destruction of amphibious invasion shipping by means of explosive-laden suicide boats. There were a total of seven sea-raiding squadrons in the Okinawa Gunto, three of which were based at Kerama Retto. Each of the squadrons had assigned to it 100 hand-picked candidates for suicide and martyrdom, whose caliber was uniformly high since each man was considered officer material. When one of these men failed to return, it was presumed that his had been a successful mission and, reportedly, he was therefore given a posthumous promotion to second lieutenant.”
“Even the youth of the island were not exempt from the mobilization. About 1,700 male students, 14 years of age and older, from Okinawa's middle schools, were organized into volunteer youth groups called the Tekketsu (Blood and Youth for the Emperor Duty Units). These young boys were eventually assigned
to front-line duties and to guerrilla-type functions for which they had been trained. Most, however, were
assigned to communication units.”
Japanese Civilians
“Military government personnel soon discovered that local inhabitants had moved with all their belongings to caves dug near their homes to escape from the path of war. Although interpreters roving
the area in trucks mounted with loudspeakers assured the natives that they would be saved and induced them to leave their refuges voluntarily, other Okinawans continued to believe Japanese propaganda and viewed the American "devils" as barbarians and cutthroats. In many cases, particularly in isolated regions, it was necessary for language and civil affairs personnel "to enter the caves and verbally pry the dwellers loose." Sometimes this resulted in troops coming upon a tragic scene of self-destruction, where a father, fearing for the lives of his family and himself at the hands of the invaders, had killed his wife and children and then had committed suicide. Fortunately, there were no instances of mass
suicide as there had been on Saipan or in the Keramas.”
Battle photos
Japanese soldiers react to U.S. propaganda
”Despite their having been thoroughly indoctrinated with the tenets of Japanese military tradition, there were some enemy soldiers who did not particularly wish to die for Emperor and Homeland. Psychological warfare teams had interpreters and cooperative prisoners broadcast surrender inducements in Japanese over loudspeakers mounted on tanks operating at the 7th Division front and on LCIS cruising up and down the southern coast. These broadcasts successfully convinced 3,000 civilians to surrender.”
“A more significant result of these messages occurred on 19 June, for instance, when 106 Japanese soldiers and 283 Boeitai voluntarily laid down their arms and gave up in the face of the 7th Division advance.’ At this stage of the campaign, the broadcasts influenced increasing numbers of the enemy to surrender as the conviction that all was lost and their cause was hopeless sank into their war-weary minds.”
“On 20 June, psychological warfare detachments on board a LCI equipped with a loudspeaker broadcast surrender inducements to the many civilian and military personnel hiding in inaccessible cave refuges lining the coastal cliffs. A feeling that further resistance was futile as well as a sense of impending doom impelled over 4,000 island natives and some 800 soldiers to heed the message and to surrender. These POWs were then herded through the front lines before dark to stockades in the rear.”
To Invade or Not to Invade
“Leahy never was in agreement with the proposition that an invasion of Japan was a prerequisite to a final Allied victory, reasoning that: A large part of the Japanese Navy was already on the bottom of the sea. The same was true of Japanese shipping. There was every indication that our Navy would soon have the rest of Tokyo's warships sunk or out of action. The combined Navy surface and air force action by this time had forced Japan into a position that made her early surrender inevitable. None of us then knew the potentialities of the atomic bomb, but it was my opinion, and I urged it strongly in the Joint Chiefs, that no major land invasion of the Japanese mainland was necessary to win the
war.”
“Leahy credits the early pressure for an invasion of Japan to the Army, which: . . . did not appear to be able to understand that the Navy, with some Army air assistance, already had defeated Japan. The Army not only was planning a huge land invasion of Japan, but was convinced that we needed Russian assistance as well to bring the war against Japan to a successful conclusion. ... My conclusion, with which the naval representatives [on JCS and JCS planning staffs] agreed, was that America's least expensive course of action was to continue and intensify the air and sea blockade and at the same time
occupy the Philippines. I believed that a completely blockaded Japan would then fall by its own weight. Consensus of opinion of the Chiefs of Staff supported this proposed strategy, and President Roosevelt approved.”
“Leaders of the Army Air Forces took the Navy view that the Japanese could be forced to surrender—without an invasion of the Home Islands—under the "persuasive powers of the aerial attack
and the blockade." It appeared that other military planners, however, ". . . while not discounting the possibility of a sudden collapse, believed that such a cheap victory was not probable, at least within the eighteen months allotted in the planning tables" established in the revised strategy agreed upon at 0CTAGON. In the end, the concept that an invasion was necessary prevailed and vigorous efforts were applied in planning and preparing for it.”
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