The Philippine Sea
The Japanese strategy to stop an American tsunami in the Pacific theater largely depended upon Germany halting the Allied advance in Europe. Though alarmed by the rapid mobilization of U.S. resources and population, Tokyo expected the Axis Powers to force Washington D.C. to negotiate an eventual settlement. Since the beginning of the war, Japanese leaders discounted the possibility that the American military would achieve the capabilities to conduct major operations in two theaters simultaneously.
During 1944, the American military quickened the pace of operations with amphibious assaults across the Pacific. Hopping from island to island, General MacArthur targeted key Japanese positions to attack while simply outflanking others. Admiral Nimitz preferred to take almost every island in his path, including ones that some of his counterparts deemed unimportant. Through a process of trial and error, U.S. commanders organized an offensive campaign to drive the Japanese military from the Philippine Sea.
U.S. forces penetrated the Marianas, where the islands of Saipan, Guam, and Tinian represented potential forward operating bases for submarines and long-range bombers. Nimitz's Fifth Fleet launched Operation Reforger on June 15, 1944, when four Marine regiments hit the beaches at Saipan. In less than an hour, 8,000 Marines went ashore. Soon, the Army's 27th Infantry Division entered the fray and trekked across the rocky and mountainous terrain. At Marpi Point, American troops witnessed thousands of Japanese civilians and soldiers committing suicide rather than surrendering. In three weeks of arduous fighting, the U.S. suffered 14,000 casualties but gained control of the island. News of the loss resulted in Kuniaki Koiso, another general, succeeding Tojo as the Japanese premier.
As the fight for Saipan raged, U.S. carriers in Task Force 58 intercepted a smaller Japanese naval force approaching the Marianas on June 19. The Battle of the Philippine Sea turned into the “Marianas Turkey Shoot,” because the carrier-based Hellcats ravaged the Japanese Sea Eagles. By the end of the day, American pilots had shot down more than 300 Japanese planes while losing only 20 of their own. Furthermore, U.S submarines sank two Japanese carriers that day. However, the caution of Admiral Spruance permitted the remaining Japanese vessels to escape total disaster. Despite missing an opportunity for a decisive outcome, U.S. forces achieved another important victory at sea.
After a brief delay, the amphibious assaults on the islands of Guam and Tinian commenced. On July 21, a Marine division and brigade assaulted Guam, 100 miles south of Saipan. Reinforced by the Army's 77th Infantry Division, they took the long but narrow island by August 10 at a cost of almost 2,000 American deaths. Americans absorbed another 328 deaths while taking tiny Tinian by August 1. With the Marianas secured, the Army Air Forces began placing new B-29 Superfortress bombers within striking distance of Japan's home islands.
Meanwhile, the U.S. submarine force in the Pacific increased its underwater attacks. Japanese merchantmen appeared vulnerable, because they rarely convoyed and failed to develop adequate countermeasures to American harassment. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, the commander of the submarines in fleet operations, oversaw the introduction of new classes, torpedoes, and tactics to the “silent service.” Modifications to the hulls, engines, deck guns, and radar-sonar systems of submarines gave the crews important technological advantages against their adversaries. By the end of 1944, the Navy counted more than 156 submarines on the prowl. Americans sank 2.3 million tons of Japanese shipping that year, which created severe shortages of raw materials, fuel supplies, and food products on the defensive perimeter.
Allied forces advanced slowly in Burma and China, where the Southeast Asia Command, or SEAC, struggled to dislodge the Japanese military. General Stilwell led an overland campaign that reached Myitkyina by the summer of 1944. A composite force of Americans and Chinese fought ferociously under the leadership of General Frank Merrill, prompting American war correspondents to dub them “Merrill's Marauders.” Though tensions remained, Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong attempted to put aside their ideological differences while forming a united front against the Japanese occupation of the mainland. The Allies pushed the Ledo Road eastward with blood, sweat, and tears, but Chinese leaders appeared content to leave the job of defeating Japan to U.S. forces in the Pacific theater.
Naval commanders in the U.S. doubted the strategic value of the Palau Islands that bordered the Philippine Sea, but the amphibious assaults proceeded as scheduled. Beginning on September 15, 1944, the 1st Marine Division stormed Peleliu. After capturing the airfield on the island, they faced an enemy emplaced in caves, pillboxes, and mountains. They endured day after day of horrific brawling, during which 8,769 Americans were killed, wounded, or missing. A smaller Japanese garrison defended nearby Angaur, which the Army's 81st Infantry Division assailed and secured by September 30.
Beginning on October 5, Admiral Halsey's Task Force 38 hit Japanese positions on the Ryukyu Islands. Rear Admiral Marc Mitscher's 1,100 carrier-borne fighters and fighter-bombers engaged a comparable number of Japanese aircraft. Americans scored a victory by destroying more than 500 planes while losing only 110. They also struck air bases on Japanese-occupied Formosa. Though unable to win in battle, the Japanese military vowed to inflict heavy losses on U.S. forces in the Philippine Sea.
With the American flanks in the Central Pacific protected, U.S. forces entered the Philippine archipelago. Though no single individual actually led the entire operation, MacArthur exercised unified command over the air, ground, and naval forces conducting the attack. Nimitz directed Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, to provide cover for the landings on the island of Leyte. “In case of opportunity for destruction of major portion of the enemy fleet offers or can be created,” ordered Nimitz, “such destruction becomes the primary task.” To his subordinates, Halsey put it bluntly: “Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs!”
The American offensive at Leyte began on October 20, 1944, as four Army divisions landed abreast on the eastern shore. Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, MacArthur's naval subordinate and commander of the Seventh Fleet, directed the naval gunfire support and carrier-based air support for the amphibious assault. Also in support, the land-based aircraft of the Southwest Pacific Area received orders from General George C. Kenney. General Walter Krueger, commander of the Sixth Army, controlled the ground forces on the beaches. In a choreographed moment before cameras, MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte to announce: “I have returned.”
From October 23 to October 26, the Battle of Leyte Gulf constituted the largest naval battle in history. It actually involved a number of concurrent engagements on the waters as well as in the skies. Inside the San Bernardino Strait, Halsey sent Task Force 38 to attack a dispersed Japanese flotilla. Kincaid's six battleships formed a deadly line across the neck of the Suriago Strait, where the Japanese lost two battleships, three cruisers, and four destroyers. To bait the Americans into a chase, the Japanese carriers remained disengaged to the north. Failing to deploy Task Force 34, the irascible Halsey left the straits undefended and steamed with his entire fleet in pursuit of the prey. At Cape Engaño, his bold action sank all four Japanese carriers and three destroyers. However, Japanese naval forces struck the outgunned vessels of Taffy 3 off the coast of Samar. Exploding bombs threw geysers of spray upward, as anti-aircraft shells dispersed black puffs of smoke overhead. Japanese pilots launched kamikazes, that is, aircraft deliberately and desperately prepared to crash into U.S. warships. Americans lost one carrier and three escorts before the remaining Japanese warships scattered for safety.
More than 3,500 Americans perished in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, while as many as 10,000 Japanese died. Whereas the former lost only 37,000 tons of naval might, the latter lost an irreplaceable 306,000 tons. The last carrier responsible for the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor sank to the bottom. Consequently, the Japanese fleet no longer posed a direct challenge to U.S. operations in the Philippine Sea.
Moving inland from the eastern coast of Leyte, American troops proceeded with the of
fensive as planned. Miserable weather, inhospitable terrain, and enemy aircraft slowed the pace of operations along the Central Mountain range. The Sixth Army doggedly advanced with artillery and armor, eventually turning southward to take Ormoc. In December, Krueger landed the 77th Infantry Division on Leyte's western coast in order to link with the Sixth Army. Together, they began to envelop and to batter the enemy. U.S. forces soon controlled the most important sectors of the island, although sporadic clashes in the mountains continued for months. On Leyte, American fatalities numbered 3,500 compared with close to 60,000 Japanese deaths.
Though falling behind schedule, MacArthur prepared to assault the main island of Luzon. The first step was the swift capture of an air base on Mindoro, 150 miles south of Manila, in late 1944. On January 9, 1945, four Army divisions landed along the shores of the Lingayen Gulf. With Halsey's Task Force 38 providing support to U.S. landing craft at Luzon, the Japanese launched suicide speedboats against them. Later that month, General Robert Eichelberger landed divisions of the Eighth Army at Bataan and near Manila Bay. Americans took Clark Field for additional aerial operations and freed ill-treated prisoners of war.
Street fighting occurred during a 10-day contest for Manila, where Americans liberated the capital city through intense urban combat. Japanese animosity produced a rampage of murder, rape, and mutilation. Within the ruins, as many as 100,000 Filipino civilians perished. American deaths in Manila reached 1,000, but around 16,000 Japanese were slain.
On February 27, 1945, MacArthur arrived in Manila to reestablish the Commonwealth government. U.S. and Filipino forces drove Japanese troops into hideaways and tunnels inside the fortified islands, where most died in an onslaught of demolitions, ordnance, and flamethrowers. Military actions in the countryside continued until summer, but Americans eventually cleared their foes from the Philippines.
Victory in Europe
The Allies in Europe pressed for the unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers. As U.S. and British forces hammered the Siegfried Line, the Red Army pushed the German military into a full retreat from the Soviet border. Though outgunned and outnumbered, the Nazis endeavored to stiffen their crumbling lines from the Baltics to the Balkans. With the winter of 1944 approaching, Hitler issued directives to the Third Reich based not upon a coherent strategy but on irrational, erroneous, and bizarre hunches.
Figure 12.4 The European theater, 1942–1945
As snow fell on Allied dispositions in the Ardennes Forest, the German high command ordered one last offensive. On December 16, 1944, German infantry and armor counterattacked between Monschau and Echternach. The Führer's gamble caught his opponents off balance, although it lacked the personnel, equipment, fuel, and supplies to reach Antwerp. Despite the shortages, the German thrust created a 50-mile “bulge” westward into Belgium and Luxembourg.
During the Battle of the Bulge, U.S. forces withstood ferocious assaults for days. Americans gallantly defended the crossroads town of Bastogne, where the 101st Airborne Division and other elements held out. The Panzers bypassed the location but cut them off from reinforcements and provisions. General Anthony C. McAuliffe, the acting division commander, answered one German demand for an American surrender in a word: “Nuts.”
Even though the Germans briefly breached the line at St. Vith, the dark skies over the Americans cleared. Just before Christmas, C-46s and C-47s conducted airdrops of supplies to the troops in the Ardennes Forest. Allied fighter bombers and howitzers blasted the Nazi spearhead near the Meuse. Recently promoted to General of the Army, Eisenhower directed Patton to dispatch a relief column to Bastogne. With astonishing speed, three divisions from the Third Army wheeled 90 degrees and rolled northward – throttles open and guns firing. Just after Christmas, tank crews of the 4th Armored Division shook hands with the grateful survivors of the 101st Airborne Division.
On January 7, 1945, the German side of the “bulge” burst. In their single most costly victory of the campaign, American losses in the Battle of the Bulge numbered 19,000 deaths, 15,000 captured, and 47,000 wounded. German casualties exceeded 100,000, but they also bled energy and resources in defeat. Allied assets on the battlefield overwhelmed Hitler's waning reserves of men, armor, and aircraft.
With the Luftwaffe's planes no longer airborne, General Carl Spaatz, commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces, intensified the strikes on Germany. He touted “daylight, precision bombing,” even if daylight sacrificed planes and pilots and precision remained unattainable. Nevertheless, the bombing devastated German cities, degraded oil and transportation facilities, and destroyed heavy industries. A deluge of ordnance over Berlin helped to inspire the Nazi fascination with exotic technologies of revenge such as the V-1 cruise and the V-2 ballistic missiles. Likewise, Americans clung to their own fantasy that air power alone would break the enemy. In Operation Thunderclap, a combined American and British aerial campaign was launched expressly to destroy civilian morale in Germany. On February 3, an attack on Berlin killed 25,000 people. Ten days later, an attack on Dresden ignited a firestorm that killed 35,000 people. Accordingly, the American press referred to the strategy as “terror bombing.”
As air superiority over Germany elevated American confidence, Roosevelt won re-election to a fourth presidential term. Rising from his wheelchair to grip a lectern, he uttered only 573 words in the shortest inaugural address ever delivered. “In the days and in the years that are to come,” he said from the South Portico of the White House, “we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war.”
Pursuant to their grand strategic vision, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in Yalta to plan for the end of the war. During the first session on February 4, 1945, they discussed voting blocs in the United Nations as well as a “sphere of influence” for the Soviet Union. They issued the Declaration on Liberated Europe, which pledged mutual support for the conduct of elections in countries freed from Nazi tyranny. The Allies remained committed to the unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers and tentatively agreed to divide Germany into zones of occupation. However, Roosevelt's failing health affected American leadership at Yalta. With the Red Army firmly in control of eastern Europe, the commander-in-chief noted that he “did not believe that American troops would stay in Europe for much more than two years.” In return for Stalin's promise to declare war on Japan within three months of Germany's surrender, Roosevelt consented to the Soviet annexation of the Kurile Islands in addition to portions of Sakhalin Island and Outer Mongolia. The Yalta Conference closed on February 11, but critics complained about its “secrets” for years.
In early 1945, Eisenhower ordered a riposte that crushed the residual German units in the Ardennes. Approximately 1.4 million combat troops – the largest field command in American history – began pushing through the Siegfried Line. Some maneuvered between small, truncated pyramids of reinforced concrete called “dragon's teeth.” The Americans and the British headed eastward, while the Russians rolled westward. Their vise on Germany tightened that March.
The Allied forces from the west reached the Rhine, taking the city of Cologne and the bridge at Remagen. Engineers assembled more bridges, which enabled the infantry and armored divisions to sprint over the waterways. They overran the valley of the Ruhr, where more than 300,000 Germans were captured. Although the Third Reich clung to power, the 101st Airborne reached Berchtesgaden. However, Eisenhower decided to stop his drive at the River Elbe, west of Berlin, allowing the Russians to seize the city. As the German defenses collapsed, the Red Army conducted an orgy of rape, murder, and mayhem. With Patton's Third Army held in abeyance, the Soviets also seized Prague, the Czech capital.
Elsewhere, Americans observed the crimes perpetrated by the Third Reich. In previous years, trains of cattle cars hauled human cargo to mass death in concentration camps. The gas chambers and crematoria provided the modern mechanisms for genocide. The Nazi regime systematically exterminated 6 million Jews and countless other
s. Eisenhower gazed upon the piles of naked bodies and issued a stark order after visiting a subcamp of Buchenwald: “I want every American unit not actually in the front lines to see this place.” The emaciated survivors testified to the horrors of the Holocaust. That fall, the Allies brought 24 German officials to trial in Nuremberg as “war criminals.”
The war in the European theater of operations climaxed, although the last German garrisons fought with fanatical determination. With Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, Vice President Harry Truman became the commander-in-chief and began planning for the American occupation of Germany. Following Hitler's suicide in a Berlin bunker, the Nazi regime surrendered unconditionally on May 8 – VE Day. Thanks to victory in Europe, Allied forces brought an end to the evils of the Third Reich.
Japanese Resistance
As American troops secured more islands in the Pacific theater of operations, Japanese resistance became stronger rather than weaker. Militarists on the defensive invoked the spirit of bushido, that is, the way of the warrior that recalled national traditions. They stressed ancient tenets to encourage soldiers, sailors, and airmen to fight to the end. Instead of making rational calculations about retreating or surrendering, scores made fanatical stands or launched suicidal charges. U.S. commanders recognized that they faced a defiant enemy while advancing toward Japan's home islands.
On January 20, 1945, General Curtis LeMay assumed command of XXI Bomber Command to intensify the aerial offensive against Japan. Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, he entered the Army Air Corps through the ROTC program at Ohio State University and honed his skills by leading air strikes against Germany. His subordinates referred to him as “Old Iron Pants.” He abandoned the concept of daylight, precision bombing in the Pacific, which seemed incapable of forcing the enemy to capitulate. After arriving in the Marianas, he ordered his squadrons to conduct area bombings at night that destroyed Japan's major industries and cities. Flying at lower altitudes permitted aircraft to carry heavier payloads. After test raids against Nagoya and Kobe, the strategic bombing campaign concentrated on Tokyo.
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