by Paul Hynes
Although the Japanese situation appeared bleak, the fight was not over yet.
Whilst striking south to capture the poorly defended Sapporo seemed attractive to Soviet planners it was not yet realistic. The landing in Rumoi had taken place at the very limits of Soviet air cover, if they struck south before squadrons could be established on the island, they would have to go without that critical advantage, supply also raised concerns, unhindered the Soviets would eventually be able to reliably supply three divisions from Rumoi but if the forces already on the island where to advance south to quickly, supply would become dangerously unreliable making the front vulnerable to even a weak Japanese counter-attack. To secure the island as quickly as possible the decision had been made to move North and West, to secure an air presence on the island and improve the supply capability, the strategy that was necessary, but would also put the advance right into the path of the waiting Japanese forces.
In the north the troops of the Japanese 42nd division were little more experienced or better equipped than the civilian militia’s, however their greater knowledge of the land and the time they had to prepare allowed them to delay the Soviet advance until they were eventually broken by the Soviet air force, nonetheless the Wakkanai fortress held out bitterly for several days after resistance in the rest of the island had ceased, and only capitulated after being stormed by Soviet troops in late September. In the west the battle hardened forces of the 7th Division made the fight in the mountains around Toshio and Tomuraushi as nightmarish as they had for the US Marine Corps in the jungles of Guadalcanal. Despite the Japanese inferiority in both numbers and equipment, the battle for Hokkaido would become a bitterly fought and protracted affair as the initial Soviet advances in August turned to the high casualty assaults as they attempted to cross though the islands’ central mountain passes. Superior Japanese knowledge of their home allowed them to exploit Soviet logistical weaknesses with the close quarters combat in the narrow confines of the mountainous terrain minimised the Soviet advantages in armour, artillery and air power.
Whilst the few kamikaze aircraft available on the island had had little discernible impact on the Soviet ability to supply their troops, Japanese suicide troops where a source of constant concern. Though not uncommon for Japanese troops who had run out of ammunition to throw themselves at the enemy in one last defiant act, these were specifically prepared groups of young, often incredibly young, people who were considered far more useful as thinking bombs than troops that Japan could not afford to arm or feed. Grizzled veterans of the eastern front would relate in later life that they had presumed that a Hitler youth armed with a rocket launcher would be the most depressing sight they would ever see, before they had witnessed a Japanese schoolgirl tumble underneath a tank.
Soviet casualties began to multiply as the dug-in Japanese made the most of their knowledge of the local terrain and their willingness to sacrifice scores of their own men. Only the knowledge that, as further forces were landed, there was no chance of the Red Army losing a battle of attrition kept Soviet officers from falling into despair at the bloodbath being permeated by the enemy. The Japanese had no means to supplant their own losses, nor did they have the ability to supplant an ever dwindling supply of ammunition and fuel in the face of perpetual Soviet attacks. Despite the fanaticism of individual Japanese troops and the endurance of their largely press-ganged civilian comrades, their ability to conduct modern warfare gradually withered into nothing. With meaningful resistance shattered, the Red Army rampaged across the north and east of the island, destroying anything that could be considered useful to the sporadic and often individual acts of continuing Japanese defence. It is difficult to estimate whether in these acts the Red Army killed more Japanese civilians than the Japanese army had in sending them to fight.
Defiant cries of fighting till the last subject echoed throughout the streets of Sapporo as the Fifth Area Army’s officers fled the island via submarine whilst its beleaguered defenders chose to flee to fight another day than fight the type urban battle that the Soviet veterans had known so well from the European conflict. By early October the island had been largely secured, with the only resistance left hidden in the mountains, diminished to little more than a guerrilla force. Those who had defended Hokkaido had largely been inexperienced, young or very old soldiers, many of whom had fought bravely but lacked the same resolve to die for the Emperor, especially against hopeless odds. Many had been threatened with death if they did not fight in the ‘Voltunteer’ Fighting Corps, a chilling prelude of the junta’s willingness to use their own population as human bullets yet also the population’s unwillingness to play along with their apocalyptic visions. It was largely for this reasons that the Soviets now found in their possession several thousand prisoners of war.
Held for over a week in barns and cattle sheds with little fuel or foodstuffs, conditions for the Prisoners were painfully grim, worsened only by a prospect of imminent death, or worse, the Gulag. It was thus to the great puzzlement of individual groups of dozens scattered around Hokkaido, when Soviet troops arrived at their holding areas bearing not only much need food and fuel but also cigarettes, vodka, and often an accordion. Unlike most of their stone faced guards, these Russians seemed far more adept in the Japanese language, and together the captors and the captured warmed themselves around fires, ate, drank, and even sang. Drinking even further, laughter and stories broke out, and in some cases even dancing. In the morning the merriment continued, breakfast was served not just to the guards but to the prisoners as well, and again many ate together. The prisoners were encouraged to join in games of Football, and in one occasion, the Red Army even managed to scrounge together a crude baseball side. Meals became more regular, as did activities, all flowing into a skyrocketing rise in morale, and a vastly improved rapport with their captors.
Around this time the speakers would come, sometimes civilians, though usually Japanese soldiers in odd uniforms proclaiming themselves to be officers of a new league. They would condemn the Imperial system that had oppressed them, lied to them, starved them, then sent them off to die against a more numerous and better equipped foe for their own feudal delusions. They condemned the American and British imperialists, who treated the Japanese as sub-human, who had unleashed weapons of nightmarish quantities against women and children, and who now planned a war of extermination against the Kanto Plain before indenting the survivors into the bourgeoisie system. They extolled the virtues of the Soviet Union, of the Red Army, and the sickle that they had swept across Asia, bringing a final end to the imperial system that had kept so many Japanese down, of the downfall of the Meiji, of the Rising Sun that would glow over all of Japan, the risen sun of Socialism.
After these lectures a choice was presented, prisoners could renounce their allegiance to the Emperor and join the ‘Japanese People’s Emancipation League’, be moved to more comfortable lodgings, and receive three meals a day. Or they could endorse their current ‘Imperialist’ status, and be left behind in conditions similar to the squalor they had had to endure before meeting their newfound friends. The first order of business for the overwhelming number who had chosen the first option was usually to beat those who had chosen the second, often to death, before more vodka was poured, and the party continued.
In his new Sapporo office Sanzo Nosaka admired these reports with glee. His time in China had paid off well, and the green recruits had been even more receptive to his indoctrination campaigns than those whom he had first used them upon when he had been sent to work for Mao. Now the League was advancing beyond just a few shaky units and propaganda stunts, soon it would be the basis of a fighting force that would descend upon the remnants of the Imperial society that had hunted, tortured, and killed so many of his comrades. Rising like the phoenix from the ashes of infighting and oppression, he and his colleagues would soon follow, to make the nightmares of so many in the Anami regime a reality.
Quagmire: The Prelude to Operation Majestic
Like their Japanese enemies, the Americans had been shocked by the daring Soviet invasion, an operation which went beyond the limits of the agreed terms at Yalta, where it had been stated that the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands would be handed over to the Soviet Union, but that there they would stop. Now they had gone further, a reality made all the more frustrating to the Truman administration by the fact that the Soviet invasion had been enabled largely by their own transfer of ships as part of Project Hula, where the Americans had sought to improve Soviet naval capacity in the Pacific to allow them an amphibious capability in the region but one meant only for the takings stated at Yalta.
The Soviet response to American enquiries into what exactly they thought they were doing was typically vague. Neither their declaration of war or the use of the new American weapon had forced the Japanese into surrender, thus their ‘liberation’ of Hokkaido had fallen within the allowance given for ‘contingencies’ agreed at Potsdam; that further, previously unplanned, operations may go ahead if the situation so required. In this action they were simply doing their best to inflict a devastating blow on the enemy that would finally bring them to the table, and endeavour in which they expected American support. When asked of their future intentions for the island they were reluctant to say anything other than the current situation would require them to occupy the island until the conclusion of the conflict with Japan. When asked if they had plans for any further ‘contingencies’, the reply was, once again, non-committal.
The fear of whether or not Stalin had a plan to move even further south and land on Honshu was now genuine. Whilst the Japanese had significant forces on the main Home Island they were largely focused on the south, and with their own attacks on the Japanese transport system they were liable to stay there. If they could land, it was quite possible the Soviets could occupy a substantial part of the islands north, and then who knows how much further if the Americans didn’t act?
Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, was as comprehensive as it was complex. The culmination of over two years of work, it envisaged two massive amphibious landings which would dwarf anything that had gone before them. The plan ultimately was aimed at a landing on the lowlands of the Kanto Plain, where Tokyo and the majority of Japan’s population and industry could be taken out of the war, on the largest island of Honshu. To achieve this goal they would first have to land on the southern island of Kyushu, where they could establish an ample number of airfields to ensure American troops could rely on constant air support when on the march to Tokyo. Thus Downfall was split into two operations, ‘Olympic’ would be the codename for the invasion of Kyushu whilst ‘Coronet’ would be used for the latter invasion of Honshu.
Olympic was not a well-loved plan, and not simply because of the logistical demands of its sheer scale. Ever since the summer there had been growing evidence to show that the Japanese strength on Kyushu had been underestimated , that they had successfully placed 14 divisions on the island, or over 600,000 men, at the very least equal to the number of troops the Americans had planned to land on the island. In the minds of most of the American Admiralty, the most prominent of whom where Admiral’s King and Nimitz, this only confirmed what they had been saying all along, that an invasion of Japan was a foolhardy objective and that the planned Operation Downfall should be scrapped in favour of a continued blockade.
It’s possible the naval argument may have won out in other circumstances, Olympic was glaringly obvious from a Japanese perspective, not only in its broad intentions but also in the fact that the landing areas could be easily guessed. Even the name ‘Olympic’ had to be altered to ‘Majestic’ as fears grew that the Japanese were becoming increasingly aware of the planned invasion. However, the projections of high casualties, growing Japanese strength and doubts about whether the operation could even succeed were not the only factors informing the Truman administrations decision.
The Soviets beating the Americans onto the Home Islands had been a serious blow to prestige, and the major threat of a partly or wholly communist Japan that had arisen from it could now not be ignored. Truman concluded that America could no longer afford to sit back and wait for the Japanese to starve, at this point it was still projected that the Japanese had over a year’s supply of food left in reserve, the strategy was now simply too slow and indecisive, if less costly. Now it had become important that both the international community and the public saw the Americans also storming the Japanese Home Islands, and that the Americans had an immediate presence in the area should the Soviets attempt a coup. Mac Arthur’s stance that the Japanese forces on the island had been overestimated was privately endorsed by Truman, who also stressed the need to end the war by at least 1946, something the blockade strategy could not ensure. Downfall was back on, with the invasion of Kyushu due to take place on November 1st.
The delays Downfall would go on to face were not unprecedented, the November date was entirely arbitrary and put great stress on the logistical amassing of men and material going on across the Pacific to be ready a month in advance. More concerning was the fact that the weather wasn’t playing ball. In 1274, and 1281 Japan had stood at the mercy of a mighty foreign power preparing to cross the ocean. Though brave, the Japanese knew that the hordes of Kublai Khan bettered them in both numbers and in quality, and that if the Mongols could cross the Asian mainland to the Japanese home islands then conquest would be assured. However they would not cross, as Raijin, Japan’s protective God of Thunder sat atop the clouds and hurled lightning bolts at the incoming fleets, destroying them before they could defeat the Japanese, crippled by the ‘Divine Wind’ by which the Japanese now nicknamed their suicide aircraft, a supposed spiritual successor to Japan’s divine protectors. However it was folly to believe they could match the God of Thunder himself, in October he would remind them of their arrogance.
Typhoon Louise had first been spotted on October the 2nd as she formed around the Caroline Islands. Initially ignored, her unexpected turn north was not met with much concern as she slowed down, only to intensify, to the horror of American meteorologists, as she passed over Okinawa on October 9th. The staging area for the invasion of Kyushu, thought to have largely avoided the harsh weather seasons, was now struck with 140 mph winds. The typhoon passed and returned over the island for three days, wrecking almost every building above ground, rendering over a million troops and personnel homeless in the process. Dozens of ships awaiting the invasion were forced ashore only to be pounded into scrap by the huge waves of the storm. Dozens of planes were smashed, torn from their runways in impromptu flights, before being hurled back to Earth. By the time it was safe for medical ships to arrive, 4000 were dead, and several thousand more were seriously wounded, with bodies clinging onto wreckage still being washed onto the beaches of Buckner Bay. From the wreckage and the horror came the already clear conclusion, with dozens of ships and hundreds of aircraft destroyed or damaged, the invasion of Kyushu could not occur in November. It was estimated that it could take as long as 45 days to repair the Typhoon’s damage, delaying Majestic to just before Christmas.
In normal circumstances this would have been unacceptable, moving back Majestic ultimately meant moving back Operation Coronet, the invasion of southern Honshu, from early March to mid-April, far too close to the monsoon season, where an advance over large parts of the Kanto Palin would become impossible. Whilst it was clear the Japanese had focused most of their efforts on the defence of Kyushu, a fight in flooded fields, with air superiority hindered from cloud cover should have been unacceptable and indeed was the reason that the Kyushu invasion had been moved ahead by a month to begin with. However these were not normal circumstances, American prestige had been badly weakened by the Soviet invasion from the invasion, and the need to land some troops, somewhere, where they could be adequately covered from the air, remained the most pressing concern. Despite even more emboldened protests by King and Nimitz, Truman indicated that they would press on. American engi
neers had worked miracles before, Truman was sure they could work them again. Meanwhile the Anami government, convinced that they had witnessed an actual miracle, thanked the God’s for their divine providence. The Japanese troops on Kyushu merely thanked them for the reprieve, before they continued to dig, and prepare for their enemies own, manmade, Typhoon.
It was in the wake of the destruction wrought by Typhoon Louise on Okinawa that the decision to deploy the fourth Atomic Bomb was made. The destruction hundreds of planes, ships, and not to mention American lives, had threatened a serious delay to the initiation of the invasion of Kyushu despite the best efforts of American engineers. The news of the storm in America had served a blow to the already fragile morale of the American people, still partly reeling from the news that they were still at war at all. For the Truman administration, this was not the time to appear to be doing nothing as increased calls for more atomic bombings regularly appeared in letters, demonstrations and editorials. Gallup Polls showed that over 80% of Americans wanted more bombings instead of the perceived inaction that was now American policy, the surgical destruction of the Japanese transport system and the rigorous blockade were effective, but they did not gain headlines in the same way that the towering Mushroom Cloud over a burning enemy city could. At the same time Truman was aware that the Japanese were exploiting this modern day Divine Wind to move further forces and supplies into Kyushu for when the American forces did eventually arrive, it was his aim to take this Japanese opportunity, and turn it into an American victory.
