The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [237]
Of course, the Japanese wanted the Americans to do something other than invade the home islands. A negotiated peace on almost any terms might be acceptable, but the emperor must stay. Japan tried to send peace feelers through the Soviets (they were not at war with Japan at this time) who conveniently failed to forward them to the United States. However, the Americans failed to understand the Japanese need to retain their god on earth, the emperor. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. President Truman (his successor) would honor the unconditional surrender demand, plus this concept was reaffirmed at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 (why it was affirmed is open to question).
Allied bombing raids on Japan were taking dire death tolls. The firebombing of Tokyo on February 23, 1945, killed an estimated one hundred thousand in the resulting firestorm. American submarines sunk Japanese shipping at a startling rate, thus causing starvation all over Japan. American aircraft mined critical straits and harbors, affecting large shipping losses and preventing the movement of food and supplies from one region to another by sea. American submarines achieved in the war with Japan what the Nazis wanted to achieve in the Battle of the Atlantic; the devastation of an island nation’s ability to wage war.
Operation Olympic
In spite of the challenge, Japan’s military rejected surrender. The Americans were putting together Operation Olympic (or Downfall), the invasion of the Japanese home islands, even as the Japanese readied themselves for the attack. The US assembled 14,000 aircraft and up to 100 aircraft carriers for the assault. However, Japan was producing suicide weapons in abundance. 10,500 aircraft were preserved for attacks on US invasion forces, hundreds of fast boats with high explosives inside were constructed for ramming American ships, and special long-lance torpedoes were prepared for carrying men who steered the torpedoes to their targets. Japan assembled and trained huge numbers of women and children to charge the Americans with sharpened sticks to cause a depletion of US ammunition before the following Japanese troops reached the American lines.[331]
Worse yet, and unknown to the Americans, with skilled radio traffic analysis and common sense the Japanese accurately deduced the landing area, the Southern part of Kyushu. Japan was quickly preparing hardened defensive positions in the escarpments overlooking the invasion beaches. The Japanese military finally decided that attacking warships was not the path to victory. All the suicide weapons would be directed at the transports, troopships, and landing craft. The LSTs were the highly prized targets instead of the battleships and carriers waiting further offshore (The Pacific War Companion, Editor, Daniel Marston, Osprey, 2005).
Figure 74 Planned Assault on Japan, Op Olympic & Coronet
The tactical adjustment of the Kamikaze attacks was probably more important than discovering the landing area. With thousands of Kamikazes aimed at troop transports and landing craft, the carnage would grow immensely. The losses of men would occur before reaching the beach; decreasing unit combat power and increasing the confusion of the landing force (recall Tarawa). Once ashore, caves overlooking the beach would rain down heavy artillery on the invaders. Coupled with bunkers and pillboxes firing machine guns and mortars into the troop concentrations on the shore (as they did at Iwo Jima), the American soldiers and marines would be in a fix. The Japanese also assembled fourteen field divisions with 625,000 troops on Kyushu by August 1945, a truly prodigious number. The “charge of the innocents” (my phrase) would come next, with thousands of women and children storming the American lines.