Book Read Free

Peter G. Tsouras

Page 33

by Rising Sun Victorious: An Alternate History of the Pacific War


  66. LST, tank landing ship, 1,625 tons; LCT, tank landing craft, 143 tons; LCI, infantry landing craft, 209 tons; LCS (referred to elsewhere), 246 tons.

  67. Assault shipping totals from Dyer, op.cit., 1105. See also Morison, Supplement, 14–17.

  68. Reference to a pair of earlier typhoons that had severely damaged fleet elements under Admiral Halsey's command. The December 18, 1944, typhoon had capsized three destroyers and heavily mauled seven other ships. Nearly 800 lives had been lost and 186 planes were jettisoned, blown overboard, or irreparably damaged. The June 5, 1945, typhoon wrenched 130 feet of bow off a heavy cruiser; heavily damaged thirty-two other ships, including one escort and two fleet carriers that lost great lengths of their flight decks; and resulted in the loss of 142 aircraft. Totals from E. B. Potter, op.cit., 423, 456.

  69. The coup attempt by officers intent on pursuing the war has been recounted in numerous works, but the original document upon which these accounts are based is Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific War, vol. 2, part 2: Reports of General MacArthur, 731–40. See also Sadao Asada, “The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender—A Reconsideration,” Pacific Historical Review 67, November 1998, 477–512, especially 592–95 on the insistence by mid-level and senior Japanese officers that the war be continued at all costs. For a different opinion see Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (Harper Collins, New York, 2000), 519.

  70. See CINCPAC chart “Appendix 43, Air Base Development,” in Report on Operation “OLYMPIC” and Japanese Counter-Measures, part 4; see also Staff Study, Operations, CORONET, annex 4, appendix C.

  71. G-2 Estimate of the Enemy Situation with Respect to an Operation Against the Tokyo (Kwanto) Plain of Honshu, General Headquarters USAFP, G-2 General Staff, May 31, 1945, section 1–2, 1.

  72. Reports of General MacArthur, vol. 1,399.

  73. Buell, op.cit. 394–6, and Dyer, op.cit., 1108.

  74. Larry I. Bland (ed.), George C. Marshall Interviews and Reminiscences for Forrest C. Pogue (George C. Marshall Foundation, Lexington, 1996), 424; and Marc Gallicchio, “After Nagasaki: General Marshall's Plan for Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Japan,” Prologue 23, Winter 1991, 396–404. See also D. M. Giangreco, “Casualty Projections for the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1946: Planning and Policy Implications,” Journal of Military History, July 1997, 521–82, especially 574–81.

  75. 2605, section 3, Japanese Propaganda Efforts, Headquarters United States Army Forces Middle Pacific, November 1, 1945, 70–71.

 

 

 


‹ Prev