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By Root 1119 0

’s almost absolute command of the sea made it impossible for the Japanese to move forces from Iwo Jima, or indeed anywhere else, to impede American operations. Japan was bleeding from a thousand cuts. All that was now in doubt was how its rulers might be induced to acknowledge their defeat, and in the spring of 1945 they still seemed far from confronting reality. Japan’s generals believed that a negotiated peace could be won by imposing on the Americans a heavy blood-price for every gain; and above all, by convincing Washington that the cost of invading the Japanese mainland would be unacceptably high. They sought to emphasise this by mounting a rising tempo of kamikaze air attacks against the US Navy.

Commander Stephen Juricka, navigating officer of the 27,000-ton carrier Franklin, was one of thousands of shocked witnesses of the devastation wreaked by suicide bombers. ‘I saw … destroyers get hit, burst into flames, men jumping over the side to avoid flames … It did not take long for the crews of the picket destroyers to feel that they were being put out there as bait.’ Early on the morning of 19 March 1945, it was Franklin’s turn to fall victim. Two Japanese bombs struck the flight deck, prompting a huge explosion below: ‘The planes just behind the elevator were spotted, ready for take-off, engines going, fully loaded with Tiny Tim [rockets], 500-and 1000-pound bombs. Sheets of flame came up and then we really started to smoke … Men were jumping off the flight deck … Two destroyers were picking people up out of the sea directly behind us … a lot of them injured, burned … We were exploding and on fire until the middle of the next afternoon.’ Father O’Callaghan, the ship’s Catholic chaplain, was giving extreme unction to a dying man when a Tiny Tim rocket ignited and flew over his head. Most of the 4,800 crewmen on Franklin were evacuated in the first hours after the attack, but 772 stayed aboard, waging an epic struggle to keep the ship afloat. The US Navy had learned much about damage control since 1941, and all of it was put to use saving the carrier. As ever, some men behaved wonderfully well – and others less well.

Stephen Juricka said: ‘I was amazed at some of our big, good-looking officers whom you would expect to be towers of strength turned out to be little pipsqueak people who needed bucking up all the time, and some other little nondescript 135-pounders turned out to be real tigers … It was the little people who really came through … Seven officers left the Franklin over the highline [a breeches-buoy link to the cruiser Santa Fe] in spite of orders to return to the ship, and Captain Gehres reported every one of them and recommended court-martial.’

As early as 1939, the USAAF’s Gen. Carl ‘Tooey’ Spaatz had anticipated using America’s embryo B-29 Superfortress bomber to attack Japan. Sporadic air raids took place in 1944, some launched from India, others from fields constructed at huge cost and in the face of painful local difficulties in China. A combination of technical difficulties with the early B-29s, the distance to Japan, together with shortcomings of leadership, navigation and bomb-aiming, caused the USAAF’s efforts to make little impact. Only in 1945 was the offensive dramatically transformed and intensified, first by establishment of a huge network of bases on the Marianas; second, by large deliveries of aircraft; and finally, by the ascent of Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay to leadership of XXIst Bomber Command.

LeMay was architect of the first great fire-raising raid on Tokyo on 9 March 1945. He dispatched 325 aircraft to attack by night at low level – between 6,000 and 9,000 feet. Torrents of incendiaries fell and exploded with their characteristic sharp crackle. Only twelve bombers were lost, most destroyed by updrafts from the blazing city. Forty-two suffered flak damage, but the Japanese defences were feeble. A pilot wrote laconically next day: ‘We took off last night at 1835 and after a dull trip hit the coast of Japan at 0210. Even before we made landfall we could see the fires at Tokyo. We were at 7,800