Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [115]
On the 10th, the U.S. War Department stepped up its propaganda campaign, including leaflet drops and shortwave radio broadcasts. In a nine-day paper blitz the AAF was ordered to drop 16 million leaflets on forty-seven cities, potentially reaching 40 percent of the enemy population. Half a million Japanese-language newspapers were added to the aerial cascade, with articles and photos of the A-bomb attacks. However, “only” 6 million leaflets and an unspecified number of newspapers had been delivered by V-J Day.
American psychological warfare proved effective. Speaking of the leaflets and papers dispersed over urban areas, Rear Admiral Toshitane Takata acknowledged, “The dropping of pamphlets warning of impending raids caused conditions close to panic in some cities.”
Additional Airpower
Even as the first atomic bombs neared delivery to the Marianas, more American airpower was assembling closer to Japan, around Okinawa.
The Pacific air forces rendezvoused in the Ryukyu Islands that summer. The 5th came up from the Southwest Pacific; the 7th via the Central route; and the 13th—least known of all the air forces that fought Japan—from the south.
Even before Okinawa was secured, aviation engineers and Seabees went to work on the airfields required to support the invasions of Kyushu and Honshu. Sites for twenty-two runways were examined and surveyed, including improvement of two existing Japanese fields. In all, the Ryukyus would support fifty-one groups, half expected to arrive as soon as facilities could support them. In early June more than twenty fields were allotted to designated units, including three Navy and Marine groups and an air depot at Naha.
As in the Marianas, construction crews came at a premium. When Okinawa was secured on June 22, barely one-third of the 80,000 engineers were ashore, but transport of the others was accelerated. Three weeks later MacArthur’s air commander marveled that new fields were “appearing like magic and construction is going on faster than I have ever seen before.”
Nor was construction limited to Okinawa proper. Nearby le Shima’s eleven square miles were crammed with airpower: at various times that summer it hosted five Army fighter groups, three bomb groups, and assorted units, plus a Marine air group. The rest of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing—fourteen squadrons—shoehorned itself onto Okinawa.
Meanwhile, the Navy contribution was considerable. Fleet Air Wing One based four patrol bomber squadrons ashore and seven flying boat squadrons at Kerama Retto north of Okinawa. Also within range were nine Mariner and Privateer squadrons at Iwo and the Marianas.
Seventh Air Force Thunderbolts had begun night heckler missions against Kyushu airfields in mid-May, a month before Okinawa was fully secured. Better-suited Black Widow night fighters then took up the mission, and day fighter sweeps began. During the second week of June the 318th Group encountered 244 Japanese planes, claiming forty-eight downed against three Thunderbolts lost.
Activity on Okinawa accelerated from July onward. Morale peaked that summer, best illustrated by the 43rd Bomb Group’s motto of WAR: “Willing, Able, Ready.” Seventh Air Force Liberators and Mitchells logged their first Okinawa missions in early July, as did the new A-26 Invaders of the 319th Bomb Group. However, Colonel Joseph Holzapple’s Douglas bombers represented far more than a new aircraft in the Pacific. The 319th had flown its last mission from Italy in December 1944, returned to the United States, and in May began the long trek to Okinawa. Thus it became the first group to redeploy from Europe, earning battle honors against both Germany and Japan.
With air supremacy readily achieved, 5th Air Force fighters “quickly turned to general hell raising” by bombing and strafing rail links, bridges, shipping, and targets of opportunity. On occasion the latter included individual Japanese.